Page:Kansas A Cyclopedia of State History vol 1.djvu/105

 a quarter of a century or more after the state was admitted into the Union, the western half was regarded as practically a desert. In 1891 E. S. Nettleton made an investigation of the artesian and underflow conditions in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Colorado and Kansas. In his report he gives special mention of the overflow at Hartland and Dodge City, and quoted the following letter from R. I. Smith, of Winona, Logan county: "I have a 6-inch bored well in my door yard, 135 feet deep, with 8 feet of water. Over a year ago I noticed that at times a strong current of air came out of the openings around the pump- stock, and by observation find it to be an excellent barometer, as it blows from 6 to 20 hours preceding a storm. I have placed a brass whistle in the space, which at times can be heard a quarter of a mile. The harder and longer it blows the more intense the coming storm will be. A peculiarity of it is the fact that, after the storm it takes back the wind."

Robert Hay, chief geologist in the office of irrigation inquiry of the United States department of agriculture, made a report the same year on the overflow conditions in the Smoky Hill and Republican valleys, but he developed nothing of importance.

In 1892 J. W. Gregory, special agent of the artesian and overflow investigation on the Great Plains, described in his report the underflow in Kearny, Trego, Pratt, Seward, Morton, Logan, Scott, Wichita, Grant, Thomas, Decatur, Meade, Gray. Rooks and Russell counties in Kansas. Describing a well in the northern part of Meade county, he says: "The first water was found in white quartz gravel at 75 feet and rose 4 feet. At 113 feet a flow of water was found in white quartz gravel, which came up freely through the pipe, carrying quantities of the gravel. The water rose to a height of over 81 feet, or within 32 feet of the top of the ground, where it remains."

Mr. Gregory reported a number of wells in which the water rose well toward the surface. One of these was sunk by J. J. Rosson on the top of a mound in the valley of the north fork of the Cimarron river in Grant county. After digging 60 feet without obtaining water. a hole was bored in the bottom of the well 20 feet deeper, when the water quickly rose in the well to within 20 feet of the surface.

The reports of these investigations, conducted by direction of the national government, have done much to strengthen the belief that under a large part of western Kansas there is a body of water that can be made to flow to the surface, and numerous experiments have been made in boring wells in the hope of striking this underflow. In some instances these experiments have been successful. In the Crooked creek valley, in Meade county, there are about 100 flowing wells, though the flow is not sufficiently strong to render them of much utility in irrigation. There is a similar artesian area about "Wagonbed Springs," Stevens county. The wells in these districts range from 40 to 140 feet deep. At the time Mr. Gregory made his report there were 2 flowing wells in Morton county and 5 in Hamilton, demonstrating that western