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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

ARTESIAN WELLS

UPON THE

GREAT PLAINS;

BEING

THE REPORT OF A GEOLOGICAL COMMISSION APPOINTED TO
EXAMINE A PORTION OF THE GREAT PLAINS EAST OF
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, AND REPORT UPON THE
LOCALITIES DEEMED MOST FAVORABLE FOR
MAKING EXPERIMENTAL BORINGS.

WASHINGTON:

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.

1882.

521
A83

no 19-22

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. AGRIC.

LIBRARY

Hon. GEORGE B. LORING,

Commissioner of Agriculture:

SIR: Having been appointed by you a commission to make scientific examination of certain arid lands of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, for the purpose of indicating suitable localities for boring experimental artesian wells, we have the honor to present the accompanying report of the results of our examinations during the season of 1881.

The region within which we were expected to operate, as indicated by your general instructions, is a very large one, the area and boundaries of which we understood to be as follows: All that area which lies between the meridian of 102° on the east and the base of the Rocky Mountains on the west, and between the northern boundary of the United States on the north and the southern boundary of the same on the south.

The season was so far advanced before we were able to begin our labors in the field that the necessity for confining them during the comparatively short time that field work would be practicable to a limited portion of the great area above indicated became at once apparent. Accordingly we selected that portion of Colorado which lies east of the Rocky Mountains as the field of our labors for the short season that remained, and received your approval of the same. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been impracticable for us to make such an examination of this large district within a time so limited as would warrant a conclusive report upon the subject required. But owing to the fact that both of us had, on former occasions, examined large portions of this district in such a manner as to make the results available for the purpose of this commission, we have been able to arrive at conclusions that, so far as a belief in their approximate accuracy is concerned, are to a considerable degree satisfactory to us.

It would have been much more agreeable to us if we had found ourselves able to make a report which would encourage a confident hope of abundant success as the result of such experimental borings within this district as were contemplated by the act of Congress authorizing the work upon which we have been engaged. The conclusions we present are, however, those to which we have felt ourselves compelled to arrive, and in support of those conclusions we also present the data upon which we have based them, that others may judge of their accuracy or fallacy as well as we.

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