Читать книгу Water Supply: the Present Practice of Sinking and Boring Wells - Ernest Spon - Страница 6

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The second question relates to the mineral character of the formation, and the effect it will have upon the quantity of water which it may hold or transmit.

If the strata consist of sand, water will pass through them with facility, and they will also hold a considerable quantity between the interstices of their component grains; whereas a bed of pure clay will not allow of the passage of water. These are the two extremes of the case; the intermixture of these materials in the same bed will of course, according to their relative proportions, modify the transmission of water. Prestwich found by experiment that a silicious sand of ordinary character will hold on an average rather more than one-third of its bulk of water, or from two to two and a half gallons in one cubic foot. In strata so composed the water may be termed free, as it passes easily in all directions, and under the pressure of a column of water is comparatively but little impeded by capillary attraction. These are the conditions of a true permeable stratum. Where the strata are more compact and solid, as in sandstone, limestone, and oolite, although all such rocks imbibe more or less water, yet the water so absorbed does not pass freely through the mass, but is held in the pores of the rock by capillary attraction, and parted with very slowly; so that in such deposits water can be freely transmitted only in the planes of bedding and in fissures. If the water-bearing deposit is of uniform lithological character over a large area, then the proposition is reduced to its simplest form; but when, as in the deposit between the London clay and the chalk, the strata consist of variable mineral ingredients, it becomes essential to estimate the extent of these variations; for very different conclusions might be drawn from an inspection of the Lower Tertiary strata at different localities.

Fig. 5.

a London clay, b Sands and clay, c Chalk.

In the fine section exposed in the cliffs between Herne Bay and the Reculvers, in England, a considerable mass of fossiliferous sands is seen to rise from beneath the London clay. Fig. 5 represents a view of a portion of this cliff a mile and a half east of Herne Bay and continued downwards, by estimation below the surface of the ground to the chalk. In this section there is evidently a very large proportion of sand, and consequently a large capacity for water. Again, at Upnor, near Rochester, the sands marked 3 are as much as 60 to 80 feet thick, and continue so to Gravesend, Purfleet, and Erith. In the first of these places they may be seen capping Windmill Hill; in the second, forming the hill, now removed, on which the lighthouse is built; and in the third, in the large ballast pits on the banks of the river Thames. The average thickness of these sands in this district may be about 50 to 60 feet. In their range from east to west, the beds 2 become more clayey and less permeable, and 1, very thin. As we approach London the thickness of 3 also diminishes. In the ballast pits at the west end of Woolwich, this sand-bed is not more than 35 feet thick, and as it passes under London becomes still thinner.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 6 is a general or average section of the strata on which London stands. The increase in the proportion of the argillaceous strata, and the decrease of the beds of sand, in the Lower Tertiary strata is here very apparent, and from this point westward to Hungerford, clays decidedly predominate; while at the same time the series presents such rapid variations, even on the same level and at short distances, that no two sections are alike. On the southern boundary of the Tertiary district, from Croydon to Leatherhead, the sands 3 maintain a thickness of 20 to 40 feet, whilst the associated beds of clay are of inferior importance. We will take another section, Fig. 7, representing the usual features of the deposit in the northern part of the Tertiary district. It is from a cutting at a brickfield west of the small village of Hedgerley, 6 miles northward of Windsor.

Fig. 7.

Here we see a large development of the mottled clays, and but little sand. A somewhat similar section is exhibited at Oak End, near Chalfont St. Giles. But to show how rapidly this series changes its character, the section of a pit only a third of a mile westward of the one at Hedgerley is given in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8.

In this latter section the mottled clays have nearly disappeared, and are replaced by beds of sand with thin seams of mottled clays. At Twyford, near Reading, and at Old Basing, near Basingstoke, the mottled clays again occupy, as at Hedgerley, nearly the whole space between the London clays and the chalk. Near Reading a good section of these beds was exhibited in the Sonning cutting of the Great Western Railway; they consisted chiefly of mottled clays. At the Katsgrove pits, Reading, the beds are more sandy. Referring back to Fig. 6, it may be noticed that there is generally a small quantity of water found in the bed marked 1, in parts of the neighbourhood of London. Owing, however, to the constant presence of green and ferruginous sands, traces of vegetable matters and remains of fossil shells, the water is usually indifferent and chalybeate. The well-diggers term this a slow spring. They well express the difference by saying that the water creeps up from this stratum, whereas that it bursts up from the lower sands 3, which is the great water-bearing stratum. In the irregular sand-beds interstratified with the mottled clays between these two strata water is also found, but not in any large quantity.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 9 is a section at the western extremity of the Tertiary district at Pebble Hill, near Hungerford. Here again the mottled clays are in considerable force, sands forming the smaller part of the series.

The following lists exhibit the aggregate thickness of all the beds of sand occurring between the London clay and the chalk at various localities in the Tertiary district. It will appear from them that the mean results of the whole is very different from any of those obtained in separate divisions of the country. The mean thickness of the deposit throughout the whole Tertiary area may be taken at 62 feet, of which 36 feet consist of sands and 26 feet of clays; but as only a portion of this district contributes to the water supply of London, it will facilitate our inquiry if we divide it into two parts, the one westward of and including London, and the other eastward of it, introducing also some further subdivisions into each.

Measurement of Sections Eastward of London.
Southern Boundary.	Sand.		Clay.
	ft.		ft.
Lewisham	65		26
Woolwich	66		18
Upnor	80	?	8
Herne Bay	70	?	50
Average	70		25
Northern Boundary.	Sand.		Clay.
	ft.		ft.
Hertford	26		3
Beaumont Green, near Hoddesdon	16		10
Broxbourne	28		2
Gestingthorpe, near Sudbury	50	?	?
Whitton, near Ipswich	60	?	5
Average	36		5

The mean of the three columns in two western sections gives a thickness to this formation of 57 feet, of which only 19 feet are sand and permeable to water, and the remaining 38 feet consist of impermeable clays, affording no supply of water.

The area, both at the surface and underground, over which they extend is about 1086 square miles.

Measurement of Sections Westward of London.
On or near the Southern Boundary of the Tertiary District.
	Sand.		Clay.
	ft.		ft.
Streatham	30		25
Mitcham	47		34
Croydon	35	?	20	?
Epsom	31		23
Fetcham	35		20
Guildford	10	?	40
Chinham, near Basingstoke	20	?	30
Itchingswell, near Kingsclere	22		34
Highclere	24		27
Pebble Hill, near Hungerford	9		39
Average	26		29