near Eastport, 60 to 73 gallons per day, have reached this horizon, but the water hardly rises to sea level besides being hard and carrying iron. Of the Upper Cretaceous formation the Magothy and Raritan are the important water-bearing horizons, the Magothy being used mostly along the lower part of the Severn River. At Eastport the Magothy yields flows from 208 feet, and at Severnside and on the opposite side of the river near Luce Creek the Magothy stream was reached at 135 feet. The Annapolis Water Company has 10 wells down 129 to 160 feet to the Magothy level, but since the elevation at the mouth of the well is over 20 feet the water only comes to within 6 feet of the surface. A well at Revell, well mouth 114 feet high, is drawing Magothy water from 150 feet. The water was very marshy and carried very large amounts of iron in the form of the colloidal hydrate. The Magothy water is frequently unsatisfactory as it carries both iron and sulphur, the amounts of which, however, are quite variable. The Raritan water level has been very little used in the county except for shallow wells, such as those at Odenton at 56 and 65 feet, and at Millersville where the Raritan water is much used by the owners of driven wells 120 to 135 feet deep. The log of the well at the Naval Academy shows that the Raritan stream there lies at a depth of 306 feet, giving it an average dip of 30 feet to the mile southeast of Millersville. This horizon is probably the one that supplied the "sulphurous, irony water reported by Darton' from Bay Ridge at a depth of 470 feet. This well has been abandoned. The water at the base of the Lower Cretaceous deposits has been long known and utilized. This stream, called basal Potomac by Darton, yields a very large supply of good water, and is extensively used in the immediate neighborhoods of Baltimore and Washington. From the more complete records available since Darton's work, it is now possible to extend the correlation farther than Darton's material allowed. Three water horizons are recognized, the basal Patuxent, the upper Patuxent, and the Patapsco, which latter, however, is more localized in its 1 extent than the other two. These horizons correspond in a general way to Darton's A, B, and C levels. The Patapsco water supplies wells at Naval Academy Junction, 103 and 170 feet deep, which have heads that raise the water 60 feet above sea level, although the mouth of the well is 160 feet high. At Patuxent Station the Patapsco stream was encountered at 108 and 118 feet with an equally large head. Again, west of Harmans at 86 feet and at Glenburnie 52 and 65 feet deep. The wells at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, 587 and 600 feet deep, have encountered the same stream which supplies the shallower wells in the western part of the county. The following log of one of these wells is taken from Fuller and Sanford' after shifting the position of the base of the Raritan. Coarse orange-colored sand with some clay and bits of shells...... 20-40 Coarse greenish to orange-colored sand with some clay.... 40-60 Medium light-gray sand with streaks of light-colored clay, sand 1 Fuller, M. L., and Sanford, S. Deep Well Drilling, 1905. Bull. U. S. Geological Survey No. 298, p. 232. Very tough red or pink clay (crust of iron ore at 524 and 545 feet)..516-548 Pink clay ..548-583 ....583-587 Coarse sand and gravel, pebbles 1⁄2 inch in diameter, large flow of water ..... 587-601 601 Very hard rock.. Casing used: 250 feet of 12-inch, 170 feet of 10-inch, 181 feet of 8-inch; length of strainer, 15 feet. These wells flow 30 gallons a minute at 8 feet above tide. The water is hard and contains considerable iron, but in use this is removed by means of a filtration system. The log shows the Magothy water level which is used by other wells in the vicinity, the stream in the Raritan, and no less than six water horizons in the Patapsco. The water level at the top of the Patuxent has been encountered at Naval Academy Junction at a depth of 315 feet where the water rises to within 80 feet of the surface. At South Baltimore one of the wells put down by the Brooklyn & Curtis Bay Light & Water Company passed the water of the Upper Patuxent at 180 feet and reached the base at 350 feet. The same level was reached at Wagners Point at 170 feet, and near Fairfield at 155 feet. The Upper Patuxent water is also used very extensively in Baltimore County on the Patapsco River Neck where it is found at depths around. 150 and 160 feet. The basal Patuxent water is very irregular in depth due to the inequalities of the crystalline floor. This water has been reached near Jessups at 180 feet and at Bridewell where the crystallines were encountered at 187 feet. The wells around South Baltimore find this lowest stream at depths which increase to the southeast at the rate of about 85 feet in the mile. A well at Fairfield reached the basal Patuxent at 350 feet, one at South Baltimore found water at the same depth, while another well at the same locality was drilled 440 feet and was dry at the bottom. No data were available concerning the Upper Patuxent stream in this well. A well at Wagners Point is 375 feet deep, and a well at the City Quarantine Station was drilled 420 feet to bed rock and found no water below 150 feet and the stream at that level was unfit for use. Another well about 1 mile farther down at Hawkins Point reached the basal Patuxent at 570 feet. These wells show the irregularity of distribution of this water and for that reason the contours can be given only for the base of the Patuxent, and even there they may well be incorrect. The water is hard but otherwise it is usually unobjectionable, although the well at Quarantine yielded water that had to be condemned. The experience of wells into the crystallines has been uniformly discouraging. The well at Bridewell reached bed rock at 187 feet and continued on to 500 feet with no additional water. The wells around the northern extremity of the county, while they have not so far penetrated beyond the base of the Cretaceous, have shown that the crystallines cannot be expected to furnish much water. Non-Artesian Waters SPRINGS.-Springs are very abundant throughout much of Anne Arundel County. Many of the springs utilized as such are scarcely worthy of the term, however, consisting merely of seepages of water into holes dug through a thin covering of sand to a clay bottom. Yet such springs are frequently utilized in spite of the danger of surface contamination. The two horizons at which springs are most often found in this county are at the contact of the Potomac and Pleistocene formations and just below the contact of the Matawan and Monmouth formations. The water of the former is usually cool, clear, and tasteless; that of the latter, though often containing iron, is seldom disagreeable in springs, though in deep wells it may be entirely useless. The springs from this latter horizon are extremely abundant, and in the area of the Matawan-Monmouth contact many of the inhabitants depend wholly upon them for their supply. Springs are of course found at other horizons, especially intraformationally in the Potomac group, where there are rapid alternations of sands and clays, but the two most constant occurrences are those cited above. |