, t

DEPARTMENT
,
(XF THE INTEKIOB

WATER-SUPPLY

IRRIGATION PAPERS
OP THE

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

No. 29

WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. BARBOUR

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1899
 lElUGATIOX REPORTS.
The folio wing list contains the titles and brief descriptions of the principal reports
relating to water supply and irrigation, prepared by the United States Geological
Survey since 1890:
1890.
First Annual Report of the United States Irrigation Survey, 1890; octavo, 133 pp.
Printed as Part II, Irrigation, of the Tenth Annual Report of the United States Geolog-
ical Survey, 1888-89. Contains a statement of the origin of the Irrigation Survey, a pre-
liminary report on the organization and prosecution of the survey of the aric1 lands for
purposes of irrigation, and report of work done during 1890.
1891.
Second Annual Report of the United States Irrigation Survey, 1891; octavo, 395 pp.
Published as Part II, Irrigation, of the Eleventh Annual Report of the United States
Geological Survey, 1889-90. Contains a description of the hydrography of the «rid region
and of the engineering operations carried on by the Irrigation Survey during 1890; also
the statement of the Director of the Survey to the House Committee on Irrigation, and
other papers, including a bil >liography of irrigation literature. Illustrated by 29 plates and
4 figures.
Third Annual Report of the United States Irrigation Survey, 1891 ; octavo, 576 pp.
Printed as Part II of the Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological Sur-
vey, 1890-91. Contains " Report upon the location and survey of reservoir sites_ during the
fiscal year ended June 30, 1891,'" by A. H. Thompson; "Hydrography of the arid regions,"
by P. H. Newell; and "Irrigation in India," by Herbert M. Wilson. Illustrated by 93 plates
and 190 figures.
Bulletins of the Eleventh Census of the United States upon irrigation, prepared
by F. H. Newell; quarto.
No. 85, Irrigation in Arizona; No. 60, Irrigation in New Mexico; No. 85,
Irrigation in Utah; No. 107, Irrigation in Wyoming; No. 153, Irrigation in
Montana; No. 157, Irrigation in Idaho; No. 163, Irrigation in Nevada; No.
178, Irrigation in Oregon; No. 193. Artesian wells for irrigation; No. 198,
Irrigation in Washington.
Irrigation of western United States, by F. H. Newell; extra census bulletin No.
23, September 9, 1892; quarto, 23 pp.
Contains tabulations showing the total number, average size, etc., of irrigated holdings,
the total area and average size of irrigated farms in the subhumid regions, the percentage
of numbe_r of farms irrigated, character of crops, value of irrigated lauds, the average cost
of irrigation, the investment and profits, together with a resume of the water supply and
a description of irrigation by artesia_n wells. Illustrated by colored maps showing the
location and relative extent of the irrigated areas.
189.1.
Thirteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1891-92. Part
III, Irrigation, 1893; octavo, 486 pp.
Consists of three papers: "Water supply for irrigation,'' by F. H. Newell; "American
irrigation engineering" and "Engineering results of the Irrigation Survey," by Herbert
M. Wilson; and " Construction of topographic maps and selection and survey of reservoir
sites." by A. H. Thompson. Illustrated by 77 plates and 119 figures.
A geological reconnoissance in central Washington, by Israel Cook Russell, 1893;
octavo, 108 pp. , 15 plates. Bulletin No. 108 of the United States Geological
Survey; price, 15 cents.
Contains a description of the examination of the geologic structure in and adjacent to
the drainage basin of Yakima Rive and the great plains of the Columbia to the east of
this area, with special reference to the occurrence of artesian waters.
1894.
Report 011 agriculture by irrigation in the western part of the United States at the
Eleventh Census, 1890, by F. H. Newell, 1894; quarto, 283 pp.
Consists of a general description of the condition of irrigation in the United Stato--, the
area irrigated, cost of works, their value and profits; also describes the water supply, the
value of water, of artesian wells, reservoirs, and other details; then take_s up each State
and Territory in order, giving a general description of the condition of agriculture by irri-
gation, and discusses the physical conditions and local peculiarities in each county.
Fourteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1893-93, Part
II, Accompanying papers, 1894; octavo, 597 pp.
Contains papers on "Potable waters of the eastern United States.'" by W J McGee;
"Natural mineral waters of the United States," by A. C. Peale; and "Results of stream
measurements," by F. H. NewelL Illustrated by maps and diagrams.
(Continued on third page of cover.)
IRR 29
 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

WATER-SUPPLY

IKKIOATION PAPEES

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

. 39

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1899
 UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
CHABLES D. WALCOTT, DIEECTOK

WELLS AND WINDMILLS

NEBEASKA
BY

EBWIN HINCKLEY BARBOUB

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1899
 CONTENTS.

Page.
Letter of transmittal ----.-.----------.-----------------------.----,-.---- 11
Importance of water resources.......,..._....-...--..-_..-.._.-----..-..- 13
Action of water underground .........,....^...................... . -.-.- 14
Sheet water........__-_...-.___-.____-_.__..._.__-.....---.-_.---. 17
Artesian water.. __..._._-..___,..__..--.-.. _..__-_....-_..-.__.. 18
Conservation of soil moisture... ....____...__...._-.____. -.-_.-.--. 24
Pollution of water.___-..._--__..._____--.....-...---._._-__ --_-.. 26
Surfaceand seepage water------ ____-_--_---.._---_--.--.._--_., 27
Fluctuations of water level.-.. .___....._.-__..-._.-----_---._..-_.-- 28
Methods of raising water ....................L......-...-.--.........-....- 28
Homemade windmills. ................................................ 31
Cost.--..-....-..-..................----...-,-.-.-----.---.---.... 34
Classification__-___-.______-.__..-___-.__.---.-...--_---..---..-.-- 34
Distribution....____.__.___-__.._-_...--..--._..-..---_--.---.---. 35
Jumho windmills. __-....._._---.-...---....----....--.--.-...---..- 35
Baby jumbo windmills.... ..................................... 37
Jumbo windmills of intermediate size .------...---.-...-.--.. 38
Screw jumbo windmills -.._...___-____.-..----..-..-----...-.-. 41
Construction of jumbo windmills.--------............ -...-... 42
Pumps _.-_---.__-.._---_.._----.---_._--.-----_,--.-,---...- 44
Merry-go-round windmills---.-.----..-------.-..-. --..-.-. .-... 44
Open-faced or turbine windmills. .................. ............... 47
Battle-ax windmills-.--.---_---...----..._.--_-.-..-,.--.--.-. 47
Holland windmills............................ ................ 54
Tower less turbines...... ..........^........................ .. 56
Stationary turbines..--.---....-.--,--- -------...-------.-..- 56
Vaneless automatic turbines..... -------- ...-----.-......._.__. 59
Giant turbines.._..........---.-_---.-..--,...-.------.---'--.- 60
Reconstruction of windmills.---.-.-.-.-----.-.---..-,-.--.--..---.--. 64
Shopmade turbines.....-............-...--...-.-........._--.-....... 65
Original uses for shopmade windmills..._....--...... ......--..--...- 66
Otherformsof water lifters.------.--.......-..-- .- T ... --.-......... 67
Transmission and storage of windmill power..-.........-......--.---...... 69
Precipitation in Nebraska.---....- ..-..-.-.....-.....-....-..--...-.--..... 71
Surface water available for irrigation..--....-------..-..-.......-.-.-.... 73
Supply for towns and cities.....--..-.........._..........-...._........... 73
Saltwater.--.--.-..--.--.-..-..-...-...---.---.-.--..-..---...-..- ...... 75
Blowing wells...--.--.---.---...-...---....-.-..,-- ...................... 78
Index....-...--.-...-.-..-......---....-...---.-......................... 83
5
 ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.
PLATE I. A, Riverview Park artesian well, near Omaha; B, Artesian well
in Holt County...... ......................................... 18
II. A, Artesian well at Beaver Crossing; B, Well of T. M. Ferguson
at Beaver Crossing ........................................... 34
III. A, Platte River, near Gering: B, Dam at Milford .............. 38
IV. A, Windmill and tower; B, Experimental windmill at farm of
University of Nebraska...,.-.- ._-._.--.-..-.-.----_------...- 30
V. A, Baby jumbo windmill on Goodrich farm, near Bethany,
Nebraska; B, Baby jumbo built by J. L. Brown, Kearney,
Nebraska ..................._..-.....-.. .--.-.....---..... 36
VI. Mounted jumbo windmill on Goodrich farm, near Bethany,
Nebraska .............................................. ----- 36
VII. A, Medium-sized jumbo windmill in garden of M. J. Olson,
Cozad, Nebraska; B, Large jumbo windmill at Cushman Park
Gardens, Lancaster County, Nebraska ...-.---......-_-..---.- 38
VIII. A, Jumbo windmill in Travis gardens, near Lincoln, Nebraska ;
B, Screw jumbo windmill _......-..--..--..-....-.--..--..--. 38
IX. A, Method of attaching arms of jumbo windmill to axis;
B, Another method of attaching arms of jumbo windmill to
axis_.__--_._..._..__.___-___._._-.-.._----..-.-.--.-.-_----.- 40
X. A, Method of construction of six-fan jumbo windmill cross-
braced by twisted wire; B, Method of construction of eight-fan
jumbo windmill....-....-.....-.-..--.-..-.-----..-.-..--.-.. 40
XI. A, Method of construction of gangs of jumbo windmills of a
diameter of from 13 to 14 or more feet and of indefinite length;
B, Method of construction of screw jumbo windmills with
canvas sails and arms braced with twisted wire ............... 43
XII. A, Gang of jumbo windmills erected above corncribs or sheds;
Jumbo windmill with wind guard or cut-off... .............. 43
XIII. Small mounted merry-go-round windmill near Lincoln, Nebraska. 44
XIV. A, Merry-go-round windmill built by S. S. Videtto, Lincoln,
Nebraska; B, Suggested form for eight-fan merry-go-round
windmill....................... ....-.-..-......----.-....-... 46
XV. A, Battle-ax windmill on farm of Matthew Wilson, near Overton,
Nebraska; B, Battle-ax windmill on farm of Fred Woulf, near
Grand Island, Nebraska ....-...-....-..-...---.......-.-..-.. 48
XVI. A, Six-fan battle-ax windmill of John Harders, near Grand Island,
Nebraska; B, Eight-fan battle-ax windmill of Diedtrich Huen-
necke,near Grand Island, Nebraska ............ ............. 50
XVII. A, Giant battle-ax windmills on farm of J. S. Peckham, near
Gothenburg, Nebraska; B, Two-fan battle-ax windmill built by
Elmer Jasperson. Ashland, Nebraska ......................... 53
7
8 ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.
PLATE XVIII. A, Dutch windmill of August Prinz, near Chalco, Nebraska;
B, Six-fan Dutch windmill of Henry Bormann, near Portal,
Nebraska.........-_-___.--._-.-.-_--_-_--__-----._.---- 54
XIX. A, Four-fan stationary turbine mill of Friederich Ernst-
meyer, near Grand Island, Nebraska; B, Six-fan station-
ary turbine of Fred Mathiesen, near Grand Island,
Nebraska ........,..~................................... 56
XX. A, Giant turbine built by J. M. Warner, near Overton,
Nebraska; B, Four-fan geared turbine built by Henry
Boersen, near Grand Island, Nebraska ...^.............. 58
XXI. A, Reconstructed windmill of E. M. Searles, jr., at Ogallala,
Nebraska; B, Irrigating pond and reconstructed windmill
on farm of Elmer Jasperson, near Ashland, Nebraska.... 60
XXII. A, Railroad water tank and windmill; B, Elevated tanks
filled by windmill for town supply, used at Fairmont,
Fillmore County, Nebraska-.-..__----.....--------.-- . 62
XXIII. Ponds of the Moulton Ice Company, Lincoln, Nebraska,
supplied with water by two turbine windmills........... 64
XXIV. Windmill and water elevator on Blue River, near Milford,
Nebraska...--.-.-.-..----. .......-....-.---.-... ..... 66
'XXV. A, Thirty-foot current water wheel on branch of Hat
Creek, Sioux County, Nebraska; B, thirty-five foot cur-
rent water wheel near Hot Springs, South Dakota ....... 68
XXVI. Waterworks at Kearney, Nebraska __..--._._. ..._....... 74
XX VI I. Burlington Beach, near Lincoln, Nebraska. _._..._...,..-_._ 76
FIG. 1. Course of water percolating from surface of soil down to saturated
area _._._...___.-.____._... ...... _-_-..__-__...._--.___..-..___ 14
2. Inclined water table on eroded rocky floor ..........-.._..,....... 15
3. Open windlass and well curb ...............................^.... 29
4. Partly inclosed windlass and well curb ___..__.__.___.._.___.____- 30
5. Jumbo windmill of M. J. Olson, Cozad, Nebraska -.--...-_.....-. 40
6. Jumbo windmills and reservoirs in the market gardens of Travis
Bros., Lincoln, Nebraska....... .-----.-..---..----......._.... 40
7. Break resulting from improper method of fastening jumbo wind-
mill arms on the axis....-..........-.-..--.--.-.-.--.... ...... 42
8. Hooded merry go-round built by William Winn, Berwin, N ebraska,
showing semicircular hood on rollers guided by large rudder.... 44
9. Plan of hooded merry-go-round windmill built by William Winn.. 45
10. Plan of large merry-go-round windmill of E. E. Blackman....... 46
11. Details of construction of battle-ax windmills. .................... 48
12. Working parts of the four-fan battle-ax windmill on the farm of
Matthew Wilson, Overton, Nebraska -.__.... ....---..-........ 49
13. Method of construction of the battle-ax mill of Fred Woulf, near
Grand Island, Nebraska ._.-.....----..-_.-. .-..-....._........ 50
14. Working parts of the eight-fan battle-ax windmill of Diedtrich
Huennecke, near Grand Island, Nebraska, with one fan in posi-
tion ---_-.--._-.__.-._..- _..--._.._... .... ............ ... 51
15. Battle-ax windmill driving crosscut saw, built by A. G. Tingley,
Verdon, Nebraska.......-_.-..__.._.-_.-- ...---.-----.-.-_-..._ 5ft
16. Stationary turbine designed and built by Janak Bros., Sarpy
Mills, Nebraska......--_ .. .-__-_-._-.....---......_....-__.. 58
17. Sketch of homemade steel turbine of W. F. Baldwin, Ainsworth.
Nebraska-..... .... r ........................... ............... 59
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 9

\ Page.
FIG. 18. Method of regulating the fans of the homemade steel turbine of
[Link]................................................. 60
19. Method of construction of four-fan turbine mill of Henry Boersen,
near Grand Island, Nebraska.-...-.-----.-.----_.------.-- ---. 61
20. Homemade turbine mill of Lewis Jardee,of Newport, Nebraska..- 62
21. Side view and details of revolving parts of homemade turbine wind-
mill of W. F. McComb, Grand Island, Nebraska..........-.---- 63
22. Two-foot tympanum water wheel operated by 12-foot aermotor .. _ 67
23. Transmission of power of windmill by oscillating wires. _._..__._. 70
24. Monthly precipitation in Nebraska...... ......-.-..-_-.-.--..... 71
25. Plan of waterworks at Kearney, Nebraska..._.--..-.--_-._-_.--.- 74
 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,
DIVISION OF HYDROGRAPHY,
Washington, February 15, 1899.
SIR : I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled
"Wells and Windmills in Nebraska," prepared by Erwin Hinckley
Barbour, professor of geology in the University of Nebraska and
acting State geologist. The data for this manuscript were obtained
by Professor Barbour incidental to his studies of the geology of the
State, and have been rounded out by special work carried on under
his direction. The original manuscript as prepared consisted of two
parts the first upon wells, and the second upon homemade wind-
mills but owing to delays in printing the first part, it has been con-
sidered advisable to combine the two papers into one and thus secure
earlier publication. The manuscript as thus combined is offered as
one of the water-supply and irrigation papers.
In the earlier numbers of this series considerable space has been
given to the subject of windmills and discussions of the results
obtained by experiments. These facts have been presented in the
hope of stimulating the development of more economical and effi-
cient methods of raising water for irrigation. In the present paper
another phase of the matter is presented, and it is shown that by the
use of material at hand a thrifty and ingenious farmer can produce
results worthy of imitation. It is not to be supposed that homemade
devices will be as efficient as those made for competition in the open
market, but in the country, far from centers of population, it is not
always practicable for the farmer to obtain such machinery. Lack of
ready money and difficulty of transportation may prevent his obtain-
ing the best windmill or pump. Under these conditions it is infinitely
better for him to use the means at hand rather than go without. It
has been shown by Professor Barbour that where one man in a com-
munity invents and builds a useful device of this kind others are
quick to imitate, so that one homemade windmill or pump is copied
on neighboring farms for miles around.
It is pointed out in this paper that the homemade windmill is not
necessarily a contrivance incident to poverty or hardship. Many of
the mills of this kind have been made by men who might afford to
11
12 LETTER OP TBANSMITTAL.

buy shopmade mills, but who, having sufficient ingenuity and posses-
sing the necessary materials, have preferred to combine these to
produce effective machinery. They have merely exercised in this
direction the thrift whose existence is shown by countless other tokens
about their farms. The homemade windmill must not, therefore, be
considered an indication of poverty, but rather the reverse, since it
is usually accompanied by progress in all lines.
The subject matter of this paper is related to water conservation in
the small way. Throughout the Great Plains region the supply of
water is so scanty and so widely disseminated that as a rule it will
be impracticable to provide great storage reservoirs or other works of
considerable magnitude. On the other hand, for the utilization of
the resources there must be innumerable attempts to employ the
small amount of water almost eveiywhere available; and this can be
done most economically through the use of the ever-present force of
the wind. Thus windmills throughout at least one-fourth of the
United States must ever be inseparably connected with the utilization
of wells and with the development of the country.
Very respectfully,
F. H. NEWELL,
Hydrographer in Charge.
Hon. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Director United States Geological Survey.
 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA.1

By EKWIN HINCKLEY BARBOUK.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER RESOTJRCES.

In Nebraska, as in other portions of the Great Plains region, the

principal source of wealth lies in the soil. The fertility of this section
is marvelous and agricultural possibilities are such that subsistence
maybe obtained for a population of several millions; yet this domain
is for the most part sparsely populated, the progress of settlement
has been checked, and the tilled areas are increasing in extent but
slowly. This apparent cessation of progress during 1894, 1895, and
1896, especially in the western half of the State, is due mainly to one
cause, the insufficiency of rainfall.
Except the soil and its products, the natural resources of Nebraska
are few. The consolidated rocks are deeply buried beneath clays,
sands, and gravels; there are few, if any, minerals of commercial
value, no beds of coal nor veins of ore, no fields of gas nor oil, but
water, owing to its comparative scarcity and its importance in agri-
cultural economy, rises to the rank of a mineral resource of the great-
est importance. The development and employment of all of the sup-
ply flowing on the surface or percolating underground necessitates a
study as thorough as-that given by other States to coal, iron, or
precious metals.
This paper has been prepared as a preliminary study of the water
problem in Nebraska. In it the attempt is made £o review briefly the
general subject of the water supply, to bring together the more obvious
facts, and to state these so that they may be understood by the farmer
or citizen not skilled in technical or scientific practice. The facts
on which the paper is based were gained in part by personal obser-
vation, and were supplemented by correspondence carried on by
printed schedules and letters. The discussion is general in character,
treating of the behavior of water underground, and particularly of
the methods of bringing it to the surface for domestic use and for use
in agriculture. Reference is also made to the surface waters of the
1 Notes and data respecting wells have been brought down to the spring of 1897; those respect-
ing windmills to the spring of 1899.
13
14 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. INC. 29.

State and the amount of rainfall, some facts are given concerning the
salt or saline waters and their utilization, and the peculiar blowing or
breathing wells are briefly described.
ACTION OF WATER UNDERGROUND.
Air, which is the vehicle for moisture, can carry a greater load
when it is dry, warm, and in motion. If the air is cooled, it can no
longer carry its burden, which is dropped from the clouds as rain.
Follow the course of the raindrops, or the circulating water, as it is
aptly called, from the moment of impact with the surface and it will
be seen that (1) a portion runs off, washing eastern soils badly, but
washing western less; (2) a portion soaks in, since the soil is sandy,
as it does not in clay soil; (3) a portion is evaporated, the average
annual evaporation in Nebraska amounting to 4 or 5 feet; and (4)
a portion, insignificant in amount, is taken up by plants and animals.
The portion that soaks into the soil sinks by its own weight deeper
and deeper through the capillary or hair-like passageways and is lost

FIG. 1. Course of water percolating from surface of soil down to saturated area.

to sight. It is universal experience that the soft, permeable surface

material may change below to harder or even impermeable layers. Then
it is that the water in its downward course is turned aside to flow later-
ally in all directions. Friction, however, greatly retards its movement.
Constant additions are received as the rains continue, so that the
creeping waters pile up, as it were, and gradually rise higher and higher;
that is, the water table or water plane is rising.
As the process continues the creeping layer must rise to or near
the surface of the soil, and thus the ground becomes water-logged
that is, soaked or saturated with water. (See fig. 1.) At such times
springs are flowing, the ponds and streams fed by them are full, wells
are inexhaustible, and vegetation is luxuriant and continues so dur-
ing dry weather or even moderate drought. Let the season of drought
continue and the creeping waters eventually steal away, and the satu-
rated area is reduced to nothing; that is, the water table is settling.
At such times ponds, springs, wells, and streams may fail the more
superficial first, the deeper last. Fresh showers cause them slowly to
rise again, or perhaps they may rise without precipitation by acces-
BAKBOUR.] GROUND WATER. 15

sions of water at-some more remote spot, or from the seepage of some
river swollen by floods at its source. Or, in still a third case, they
may rise in an apparently mysterious manner without the interven-
tion of showers or flood, simply because of hydrostatic connection
with some other region which is flooded.
The water table, then, is subject to rise and fall because of water
received at home or from abroad. It is not an entirely stable body
preserving a constant level, but is subject to seasonal variations and
variations incident to cycles of dry and wet years. The water table
is not necessarily level, but is usually so, for instead of following the
rocky floor the water table may run parallel with the surface. The
floor, as well as the surface, is apt to be undulatory and the water
plane or table higher or lower, according to the material passed
through, to the escape of the water, and to other modifying causes.
(See fig. 2.)
The ground water or free water, as it may be called, is evidently in
circulation and subject to fluctuation. The wells of the region like-
wise vary, although this is scarcely worthy of mention in the case of
Nebraska, from the fact that nearly all of the counties report an unlim-

FIG. 2. Inclined water table on eroded rocky floor.

ited water supply, with inexhaustible wells. When the water table
rises to within half a yard of the surface, vegetation suffers or is
drowned out. On the other hand, when the water settles too far,
plants may suffer equally from lack of water to carry soluble plant
food to their roots and rootlets. When, however, the water table
stands at a mean level between these two extremes, the fields of the
State, with an annual rainfall of but 23.3 to 25 inches, produce crops
and withstand droughts in a manner astonishing to the citizens of
regions possessing double the annual precipitation. At first it seemed
incredible that such magnificent yields could come from so insignifi-
cant a rainfall. Nevertheless the fact stands. There are two appar-
ent reasons for this. The rainfall in many eastern regions amounts
to 35 or 40 inches, but one-half is lost by running off and carrying
with it valuable soil fertility, the other half soaking into the ground,
while in Nebraska the water lost as run-off is only about one-tenth.
Hence, here a far greater proportion of storm water is stored for
future use. This is largely due to the sandy nature of the soil. Even
some of the so-called clay soils, though looking and acting like clay,
are in fact exceedingly fine sand.
16 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBKASKA. [NO. 29.

From the mechanical analyses of soils and subsoils made thus far it
is shown that Nebraska soils are peculiarly rich in sands and poor in
clays. The amount of sand including in this term coarse, medium,
and fine sand and silt runs as high as 97 to 98 per cent. The lowest
percentage thus far is about 66 per cent, while the average is prob-
ably about 78 per cent, based on the analyses made by Prof. Milton
Whitney, of the Department of Agriculture. In a word, there is a
preponderance of sand in Nebraska soils, which renders them at once
light and capable of readily imbibing a larger proportion of rainfall
than is possible in eastern States. This is a very significant fact.
The more one cultivates the virgin prairie, which when hard packed
sheds water like a roof, the greater will be the amount of storm water
caught and stored in the soil and the less the run-off and evaporation.
Increased cultivation tends toward the conservation of soil moisture,
and this in turn reacts, making it possible to catch more moisture,
since soil already damp imbibes more rainfall than a dry soil. Thus
as settlement goes 011 the amount of precipitation absorbed increases
and the amount lost becomes even less. This statement must not be
confounded with the popular but erroneous belief that the annual
precipitation is increasing.
But when the spring rains cease and a season of settled weather
or possibly drought sets in, and the surface soil dries, a force of great
interest and of profoundest importance begins to act. This force is
capillarity, by virtue of which water is drawn up through the minute,
hair-like passageways of the soil and subsoil, rising automatically
as much as 6 or 7 feet. This, then, is a second way by which water
is held in the soil, and its far-reaching importance is instantly
apparent when one considers that the very passageways up which this
water is drawn are those down which rootlets grow. Soil moisture
laden with soluble plant food is thus carried up to the rootlets or
feeders of growing vegetation. Crops and grasses are nourished by
capillary water and saved by it uninjured in time of drought, even
during seasons of long-protracted dryness (if not accompanied by hot
winds), such as could not but blight crops and grasses elsewhere.
However, it is not to be forgotten that this force works equally well
both ways, thereby carrying moisture up or down, according as the
surface soil or the deep subsoil is the drier. This only emphasizes
the importance of utilizing all available rainfall in saturating the
deeper soil as completely as possible, in order that the full energy of
capillary attraction may be expended in drawing soil moisture to the
rootlets.
Thus far two means have been considered by which water is held
by the soil first, as ground water, sinking by gravity, and, second, as
capillary water. There is another means so subtle and concealed as
to merit little more than passing notice hygroscopic water, which is
inherent in many minerals, rocks, soils, and substances, and may be
obtained by long-continued roasting.
BARBOUH.] GROUND WATER. " 17

SHEET WATER.

There is in common parlance a rather indefinite and puzzling use

of the terms, first, second, and third water, an^ sheet water. By first
water is meant the first surface water that seeps into the well; a supply
often weak and readily exhausted. By second or sheet water, as it is
commonly called, is understood the deeper ground water, which is
unlimited in amount, since it is contained in porous material that
delivers water rapidly. Third water, as the term is popularly used,
is doubtless the same second water struck at a lower level, after pass-
ing through a local layer of fine material of slow delivery.
Sheet water is a greatly abused term, about which has gathered
false impressions not easily dispelled. It carries with it wherever
used the idea of subterranean water^ flowing at an exaggerated rate
under the ground. It is perfectly true that ground water flows and
that it has certain channels, naturally decided by the coarseness or
fineness of the material, but one hears repeatedly of well diggers
striking subterranean currents of sheet water flowing at the appar-
ently incredible rate of 4 or 5 miles an hour, a faster rate than that
of the Platte itself. This fallacious statement is made repeatedly in
all sincerity and good faith. A very popular conception of this tor-
rential sheet water is that it is the angry and pent-up floods of sub-
terranean caves, which are seeking outlets to the sea. This erroneous
conception is worse than fallacious; it is entirely misleading.
There is no such current in the sheet water, and there are no such
extensive caves and underground lakes, and can not be in the sandy
soil of Nebraska. Caves are formed in limestones, not in sands, for
naturally the sand would cave in and fill any great underground
passageways as fast as formed. This misconception comes about
naturally enough in some cases, and is cherished with a faith not to
be shaken. The well digger, who, while bailing or pumping out the
water on one side of the well, sees [Link] in from the other,
can tell without hesitation in which direction the water flows, for he
"has seen it himself;" but let him set his pump on the opposite side
of the well and the current will set in from the other direction.
Of course there is a current whose rate is regulated by the coarse-
ness or the fineness of the material through which it flows, but this
same current is inconceivably slow. Coarse material with rapid
delivery of water may have a current as slow as a fraction of a foot
a day, or as rapid as several feet a day, while in fine-grained, compact
soil the rate is reduced to little or nothing. A better understanding
of the power of delivery of various materials would correct many of
these errors.
If an old pail or keg, having holes in the bottom, is filled with clean,
coarse pebbles, and a stream of water poured in, the rate of delivery
is practically as rapid as the rate at which the water is poured. Its
rate is so rapid that the water flows down through the gravel in a
IRR 29 2
18 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.
\
column, scarcely wetting the other pebbles. With the sand, however,
the water spreads out or is diffused through much or all of the mass,
and is delivered slowly at the bottom. In the silt, which is impalpably
fine sand, the rate is still slower and the whole mass is saturated with
water. In clay the fineness of which is extreme there is no delivery
at all in experiment and practically none in nature. Mix together
gravel, sand, silt, and clay, about as they occur in nature, and the
rate becomes about the same as that of the finest material that is,
water is delivered with extreme slowness.
This set of experiments tends to show the rate at which water can
flow through soil or rock of various degrees of porosity, and disproves
the statement that the velocity of underground currents is in any way
comparable with that of surface streams.

ARTESIAN WATER.

Ground water is almost universal and is the source of the supply

of common wells. In addition to this there is the extraordinary
subterranean water which supplies artesian wells. In the common
house well the water seeps in and stands quietly at a certain level.
In the artesian well it comes in under pressure. This is the only
essential difference between the two. The artesian wells in Artois,
France, from which the name "artesian" is derived, were the first
dug and observed. These were spouting wells from deep sources;
hence the term artesian presupposes in the public mind a spouting
well from deep-seated sources.
This early conception, however, is not the true one. Many arte-
sian wells are shallow, not over 60 to 80 feet in depth, but yet are
true artesian wells. Many throw fine streams from a few inches to
several feet high, and are unquestionably artesian wells; but a short
distance away at a higher level the same water will rise in the well
under the same pressure and is likewise artesian, even though the
head is not sufficient to force it above the surface. The one is an
active, positive, flowing artesian well; the other a negative, passive,
or standing artesian well.
In Johnson and Seward counties the shallow artesian wells are
beautifully represented. They occur in valleys where the surface
has been washed away and lowered, thus enabling the pressure or
"head" to force the water above the surface 10 to 12feet. On this
level flowing wells are everywhere to be found, which are already put
to many economic uses, and farms which are models of their kind
draw their water for irrigation from this source with no cost. These
are positive or flowing artesian wells. On farms a few feet higher
precisely the same water is struck. It rises to the surface, but can
not flow over it.
It is universal experience that rocks, some soft and porous, some
dense, are found in the State arranged in horizontal beds. The denser
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. I

A RIVERVIEW PARK ARTESIAN WELL, NEAR OMAHA, NEBRASKA.

Depth, 1,060 feet; capacity, 114,427 gallons a day; 6-inch pipe ; water but slightly saline : temperature,
62°; cost, $1,000 This well supplies annually to the park system of Omaha a volume of water which,
at the lowest wholesale city water iate, would cost $5,000 a year, and illustrates the use of artesian
water for the beautifying of parks. In addition to the fountain and stream a small lake is supplied by
the well.

ARTESIAN WELL IN HOLT COUNTY, 18 MILES SOUTH OF O'NEILL, ON THE

FREMONT, ELKHORN AND MISSOURI VALLEY RAILROAD.
BABBOTO.] ARTESIAN WATER. 19

layer will constitute the impervious jacket around the more porous
layers. The layers which are deeply buried here, and but inappre-
ciably tipped, may come to the surface elsewhere and form a catch-
ment basin, perhaps at a point far distant, as is the case presumably
with the deeper wells found along the northern and northeastern
boundary of the State.
The artesian wells, as far as reported, fall into four rather natural
groups, as follows: The deep wells of the Carboniferous, such as those
at Beatrice, Lincoln, and Omaha, varying from 556 to 2,463 feet; the
artesian wells of the Dakota sandstone, 300 to 400 feet deep, being
a continuation into Nebraska of the South Dakota artesian basin;
the shallow wells in glacial sands and clays, such as those at Cook,
Beaver Crossing, and elsewhere; and other shallow wells not in the
drift, such as those in Jlolt and Bock counties. (See PL I, B. )
There are local artesian basins in the State which are more easily
compassed than the deep wells. There are small basins of 10 to 15
square miles each in the valleys of streams, depressed noticeably
below the general level of the surrounding hills. "Within this circum-
scribed area, wherever the impervious roofing or encasement of clay
is pierced the depth varying from 40 to 100 or more feet there comes
a strong and constant flow. Such wells are too shallow to come from
strata which draw their water supply from a distance, so that it is
necessary to look for some other explanation.
It is at once apparent that this artesian supply is drawn from beds
of alternating gravel, sand, and clay, deposited by glacial action dur-
ing the ice age, and that it is rather limited and local, though none
the less important, as has been sufficiently demonstrated by its mul-
tifarious uses at Beaver Crossing and adjoining localities. Farther
downstream the wells, instead of growing stronger, grow weaker.
This is due to some leak or escape of the water through the imper-
vious clay roof, which results in a reduction of head or pressure in all
adjacent wells.
The alternating and confused arrangement of these beds comes
about naturally, because of the way in which the glacier and iceberg
deposited coarse, medium, and fine material together into heteroge-
neous piles clay here, sand there; sand, gravel, and pebbles else-
where. The porous gravelly layer, incased above and below by layers
of clay, is not necessarily of uniform texture, but, instead, there
occur among the coarser material patches or islands of finer material.
Hence as the well is in this patch or that, its head or pressure
will be accelerated, retarded, or stopped outright, according to the
rate of delivery of water in coarse, fine, or clayey material. One
farm at Cook, Johnson County, in the midst of flowing wells, has
failed, and always must fail, to furnish artesian water, and there is
apparently nothing anomalous in the case. The farm is over what is
called a " clay island." All the wells dug on this farm penetrate clay
only, and, of course, one can not hope to strike artesian water there.
20 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

List of artesian wells.

Name of well. County. Town. Depth. Remarks. Year.

Feet.
Lincoln test well . . Lancaster .-_ 2.463 6-inch pipe; throws wa-
ter 5 feet above sur-
face; salt water.
Artesian well, Gov- ....do-.----.. .....do ...-. 1,060 Bed rock at 95 feet; salt
ernment square. water 160 feet; first
flow 560 feet.
_-._do. - .... .do. ........ ... 55(5 Strong flow; salt water;
100,000 gallons per day.
.....do .... 5 miles west of 240 Slight flow..---.... ......
Lincoln.
Willow Springs dis- 1,?00 First flow at 700 feet;
tillery or Iler's well. to second flow at 1, 700 feet ;
1,800 pressure 37 pounds per
square inch; used for
boiler. ,
Pickard's or "Well do.. .. 6 miles west of 1,383 Heavy flow at 517 feet, 676
No. 1." Omaha. feet, and 894 feet;
strongest flow at 1,080
feet; pressure 150
pounds.
Courtland Beach or .... .do ... 3 miles north- 998 6-inch pipe; throws wa- 1894
Cut-off Lake well. east of Omaha, a ter 40 feet; 86,000 gal-
lons per day.
Riverview Park well. ..... do..... .- 2 miles south of 1,064 4-inch pipe; 114,437 gal-
Omaha. lons per day; slightly
saline. Feeds a lake of
2 to 4 acres. Tempera-
ture, 62°.
Omaha Packing Com- ... ..do.. . South Omaha.... 1,800 Negative artesian, rising
pany. 70 feet to surface;
strongly mineral. Tem-
perature, 62°. Too
warm for condensers.
.... .do--...... 65 Soft water; cost, $45 ..... 1887
Near Hastings... 114 1886
William Kearville ... Boyd. ...... -. T. 34, R. 8. ..-. 760 Cost, $2,000; used for irri- 1895
gation; 100 gallons per
minute.
Cal. Moffett .......... .do........ Sec. 2, T. 34, R. 12. Used for irrigation; 15
barrels per minute.
G. L. Emmons.. ...... .....do........ [Link].T. 33, R. 8. Used for irrigation; 2,000 1895
barrels per day; cost,
$1,000.
L. M. Short.. ......... 5 miles from 32 8-inch pipe; 40 gallons 1895
Ainsworth, in per minute ; soft water ;
Sec. 9, T. 29, R. cost, $6. (?)
22.
C. W. Conkling. ...... Tekamah . 103 Three wells, 3, 4, and 8
inch, for city water sup-
ply-
do.. . Craig...... .... 126 Flowing water at 120 feet.
CO2 blown off for sev-
eral days.
a Re ally in Iowa, b<3cause of meander] ngsof IMissouri River.
 AETESIAN WATER. 21
List of artesian wells Continued.

Name of well. County. Town. Depth. Remarks. Year.

Feet.
8 Ceased to flow, 1894 ......
sec. 16, T. 10, R.
12.
a363
water.
100 1892
21, T. 31, R. 28. hard water; 100 gallons
per hour; railroad well.
..... do. ...... . Sec. 21, T. 31, R. ir Soft water.. __ ......... 1892
28.
94 Negative artesian; cost, 1886
30, T. 13, R. 45. $75; by aid of pump, b
9r Used for irrigation; 2 1895
barrels per minute;
hard water: cost, $97.
86 13-inch stream, easily
lowered; hard water;
cost, $50.
-..--do........ Sec. 25, T. 32, R. 83 600 gallons per day; soft 1888
52. water; cost, $100.
.-do . Sec. 13, T. 32, R. 18.5 1891
52. good pressure until
filled with sand.
407 1885
Do......... .-. .....do........ ..do ...... 265 ..... do...... ....... ........ 1894
.do . 484 1888
Ponca. stopped; stands 6 feet
below the surface;
cost, $50.
Dodge..... 304 1892
Hooper. hard water.
1 260
supply and abandoned;
intermittent flow.
MB 1894
face; soft water; cost,
$11.
P. A. McDonald ...... .....do Sec. 15, T. 24, R. 140 1894
14. flow; cost, $30.
...-.do. .... Sec. 22, T. 24, R. 175 1894
14. water; 5 gallons per
minute; cost, $37.
450 1895
T. 25, R. 28. soft water; cost, $225.
Holt...... .-.. 55 to
130 $10 to $30.

Herman Kracker ..... 146 Cost, $200....... ........... 1894

Elk Creek, sec.
34, T. 4, R. 12.
J. J. Wilson (3 wells) . .....do........ 80 1893
Cook, sec. 1, T. water, c
6, R. 10.
a Average depth.
b Used to water 8,000 sheep and to irrigate garden.
cOne well from 4-inch nozzle keeps a 1-acre pond, 4 fe«t de«p, full all the time.
22 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

List of artesian wells Continued.

Name of well. County. Town. Depth. Remarks. Year.

Feet.
Cost, $20 .................. 1895
Cook, sec. 6, T,
6, R. 11.
504 Cost from $225 to $3,600;
to majority hard water.
770
93
Sutherland, this is really artesian.
sec. 6, T. 14, R.
34.
81 1891
artesian well in the
county; pipe often
choked up; good pres-
sure.
80
R. E. Haskell... ...... 43 1895
gallons per minute.
.....do.
.--. Sec. 33, T. 20, R. 30 18S8
35. hour; soft water.
August Tannehill .... Madison 6 miles from 125 Cost $90; 30 gallons per 1892
Norfolk, sec. minute; medium hard.
27, T. 25, R. 1.
E. D. Oool ............ 38 1892
lerton, sec. 14, rises through 3-inch
T. 17, R. 8. gas pipe for 24 feet.
53 Cost $32; soft water ...... 1892
Brock.
J. [Link]... ....... Otoe ......... £ mile from 75 Cost $20; one barrel per 1891
Cook. minute; used for irri-
gation; about 25 such
wells in vicinity.
.....do .-... 282 1889
Unadilla, sec. per hour; cost $283.
28, T. 9, R. 10.
10 Cost $15; said to flow in 1888
t Pawnee, sec. wet seasons; has suffi-
8, T. 3, R. 11. cient water for 200
head of stock.
. .do. .... 85 1891
Burchard, sec. amount of hard water;
36, T. 2, R. 9. slow flow, about 20 bar-
rels per day.
.-...do ..... 11 1893
33, T. 3, R. 11. sons; soft water.
150 1894
Madrid, sec. $150; soft water.
19, T. 10, R. 36.
Platte -. 13
to from $50 to $100; one salt
100 and others soft water.
Polk ......... 104 1887
amount of hard water.
BAEBOUR.1 ARTESIAN WATER. 23
List of artesian wells Continued

Name of well. County. Town. * Depth. Remarks. Year.

Feet.
McCook.... ...... 405 1895
weak flow, but flow has
increased; experi-
mental well.
05
to $40; all soft water.
143
[Link]. L. Miller .... 1,430 1891
Omaha, sec. 2, pounds to square inch;
T. 14, R. 13. soft water; fine arte-
sian; supplies a 30-acre
lake for ice and fish.
Scotts Bluff.. 330 Cost |200; at first had a 1894
flow of 1,000 gallons per
day, but filled up with
sand and a pump is
now used; soft water.
13
to some hard and some
100 soft water, ranging
in cost from $18 to $65.
96 1895
ger, sec. 6 T. 2, $77; hard water; declin-
R. 3. ing flow, about 4 bar-
rels per minute.
Valley ....... 70 1893
15 gallons per hour.
William Fetch.. ------ 76 Cost $75; soft water; 1897
good flow.
William Rutledge..-- .....do.-....,. .....do............ 38 1894
free flow.
.....do........ .....do_. .......... 37 1894
.gallons per minute.
8 to Cost from $8 to $75; all
124 soft water.
A. B. Codding........ York......... York.............
flowed 5J hours, then 9
hours, and stopped;
drill is fast in sand
rock 600 feet deep.
Water to be used in
mill pond.
Eugene Wright (two .....do........ --.--do............ 340,590 1895
wells). for flour mill, but flow
at 500 feet too weak.
Harry Hill.. .......... 280
per day.

These local artesian wells are already turned to admirable account

in supplying ponds for fish culture, fountains for school yards and
parks, and water for domestic use and for irrigation. (See PL II, A and
B. ) The last-named use is destined to become of considerable economic
24 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO.29.

importance. Some farmers have already from eight to ten 5-inch

wells per farm with which to irrigate over 100 acres each. The
number who have tapped the subterranean reservoir and allowed
the imprisoned water to escape and to flow away aimlessly and use-
lessly far exceeds those who have put it to intelligent use. There is
enough artesian water wasted thus to irrigate whole farms. What
renders this matter all the more deplorable is the obstinacy of many
people in insisting that the supply can not be exhausted. This view
is wholly fallacious, and if persisted in may result in damaging or
destroying altogether an important resource. Every well dug must
diminish the head or pressure that much, whether the amount is
perceptible or not. Unrestricted abuse of these water privileges can
but result disastrously here as elsewhere. All this water should be
most conscientiously used and conserved.
In several localities, noticeably in Rock County, near Kirkwood,
there are strong springs which boil up with such force that if the
water be confined by placing several joints of old stovepipe in the
throat of the spring the pressure is sufficient to force the water
several feet above the surface. Springs of this kind are numerous,
especially in this vicinity. Since the water rises under pressure, the
name "artesian spring" is applicable. Similar springs in'Johnson
County are called "mound" springs, because the water in the center
appears to boil up and is higher than that of the edge. This boiling
occasionally gives them the name "kettle" springs. Such springs
near Sterling are 30 feet across, and the overflow is reported as 3
feet wide and 2 feet deep.

CONSERVATION OF SOIL MOISTURE.

The importance of .the conservation of moisture has not yet had

the general recognition which the subject merits. But each year
brings unmistakable advance in this matter, as is shown by the con-
struction _of new reservoirs and dams across streams and draws, and
by new methods of cultivation. These are on the increase, and were
it not for the difficulties in the way of making water-tight reservoirs
in sandy soil and the large amount lost by evaporation (averaging 4£
feet for the State), greater progress might be reported. The matter
of conservation of soil moisture by superior cultivation, being a less
obvious factor, is lost sight of by many, and yet by this means
there have been, to the author's knowledge, some marked examples of
success, standing in strong contrast to the failure of others. By pul-
verizing to extreme fineness a coarse soil, the absorption of water
may be increased a thousandfold. Compress or "firm" the soil, and
the attraction of capillary water is increased to that extent. Mulch
the surface into fine, loose particles, and the capillarity which draws
the moisture up to the plant rootlets is broken at that point, and a
 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. II

A. ARTESIAN WELL AT BEAVER CROSSING, SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

i>. WELL ON FARM OF T. M. FERGUSON, AT BEAVER CROSSING, NEBRASKA.

Depth to artesian water, 80 to 90 feet. Height ot pipe, 13 feet; diameter, 6 inches. Mr. Ferguson irrigates
I 1 2 acres from nine such wells, which cost $900.
BABBOUE.] CONSERVATION OP SOIL MOISTURE. 25

blanket is formed* for the retardation of evaporation and retention of

moisture in the soil. By careful and intelligent farming, wide areas
now abandoned, or held by indifferent, roving classes, will prove to
have ample moisture for agriculture.
The results of close and conscientious farming are astonishing. One
aged English couple living near Lincoln were forced to undertake
farming in a small way for subsistence. The land was poor and the
season was bad. All the neighboring tenants fled, and earned noth-
ing during the entire summer. The aged couple farmed all the more
closely, conserving the soil moisture in every way known to them.
Starting on nothing, and struggling through the most trying season
recorded in the State, at the end of the harvest they deposited in bank
$100 above their expenses, which they afterwards spent judiciously
in purchasing stock and necessary machinery for another year. These
are small earnings, but, nevertheless, the difference between their
methods of farming and that of their nomadic neighbors is infinite.
It is such farming as this that makes the agricultural reputation of a
great State.
During a recent trying summer the agent of one of the railroad
companies in Nebraska escorted several parties of Eastern capitalists
across the State. Contrary to the advice of those who thought the
course injudicious, the railroad company took the tourists through
the least promising as well as the most promising parts of Nebraska.
In the heart and center of a deserted region in the arid belt, where
the cornfields on the right were withered and abandoned, they repeat-
edly came upon farms on the left with magnificent fields and the
appearance of prosperity.' They found, on inquiry, that the nomadic
neighbors were in their " prairie schooners," seeking easier jobs else-
where, while the colonists left behind were farming with extreme care
and were prospering. On the one farm the finest crops were grown;
across the road none at all. The difference was due solely to the
farmers, the one farming carefully and conscientiously, the other
slothfully. When arid lands respond in most unpropitious times to
careful and intelligent treatment, what may not be expected of the
best? Confidence in the future of agriculture in semiarid and arid
Nebraska was impressed and fixed in the mind of each tourist who
saw this admirable and striking example of the results of intelligent
farming. Taking advantage of the lessons taught by superior culti-
vation, the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company has
initiated a most commendable series of agricultural experiments in
the semiarid and arid nonirrigated portions of Nebraska and Kansas.
Here a practical test will be made of the actual utility of soil-culture
methods for the conservation of moisture. Experiment stations have
been established at Holdrege, Alma, Oxford, McCook, Curtis, Broken-
bow, Grant, and Hastings, in Nebraska, and at Oberlin, Wheeler,
St. Francis, and Bird City, in Kansas.
26 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBEASKA. [NO.20.

The method to be pursued is substantially that introduced at Put-

ney, South Dakota, by Mr. H. "W. Campbell as early as 1885, a method
promising to be even more important than irrigation because of its
wider applicability. This process consists essentially of deep plowing,
subsequent firming of the soil to increase capillarity, and light sur-
face cultivation to break capillarity and check evaporation, and to
this end special machinery has been designed. The method is often
known as "dust-blanket farming," the idea being to cut the surface
into a soil mulch or powdery condition in order to prevent loss of
moisture.
Farmers along the Republican River as far west as Harlan County
who have tried this method find that a diversity of crops is possible,
and that while the number of acres cultivated is reduced about one-
half, the yield is increased several fold. For instance, potatoes, which
yielded an average of 212 bushels under this treatment, gave but 25
bushels per acre to neighbors who avoided this system of close farm-
ing on the ground that it was expensive and onerous.
During the last five years various means for catching and holding
surface water have increased enormously, and now attention is
directed to the results consequent upon the better conservation of
soil moisture, all of which will aid in the reclamation of important
tracts of remarkably productive land now idle and unoccupied.
There are table-lands 200 to 300 feet above water where no amount
of conservation of moisture on the surface or in the soil can avail;
but, on the other hand, there are countless regions to be benefited
thereby. Such table-lands, therefore, where grazing is notably good,
should be turned over to stock raisers, arid the lowlands to agricul-
turists. Each class would prove of benefit to the other. Community
life could be formed in the valleys and the uplands left for grazing.
It is universally conceded that cattle raising is profitable, and that
the small herder can make steady gains by watching his cattle more
closely instead of turning them loose upon the range as formerly. It
is an easy way to turn stock upon the common range, where no care
is required .winter or summer except at the time of the annual "round
up." But by that method the chances for loss are greater. Its day is
past in Nebraska, and it is now time for many small cattle raisers to
occupy the land once grazed over by the herds of great companies.
The grazing lands should be turned to better account, the conditions
of the valley lands should be better understood, and many important
tracts now deserted should be reclaimed. This will come about by
the storage of storm waters, by irrigation, and by the conservation of
soil moisture.
POLLUTION OF WATER.

The water for domestic supply is well purified. In the river cur-
rent the water is exposed to the air, and thus purification by the
process of oxidation goes on. The ground water is likewise purified.
BAKBOTJR.] POLLUTION OF WATER, 27

But in its descent through the air, in its passage down the streams, or
through the soil and rocks, water, which is the universal solvent, takes
up certain acids and gases, and dissolves certain minerals, particularly
lime (making hard water), iron (making chalybeate water), potash
or soda (making alkali water), or salt (making saline water).
These are wholly inorganic ingredients and for the most part harm-
less. But there are other ingredients not to be detected by the sense
of smell, sight, or taste, which come from organic decay. Water in
closely settled regions is subject to -dangerous pollution. It then
becomes a vehicle for germs and contagious disease, and is not fit even
for beasts. Wells should be so located and guarded that barnyard
wash can not drain into them nor soak through the soil into them.
The water filters through many feet of soil, and is pure and whole-
some if proper precautions are observed. One may feel great confi-
dence in the purity and healthfulness of water drawn from a well
which passes through clay before striking water-bearing gravels.
The writer can not refrain from citing one specific case of well-
water pollution. The occurrence of fever in three families in Omaha
pointed unmistakably to the dairyman who supplied them with milk.
On visiting the dairyman the city physician found three in his family
suffering from the same fever. The seat of trouble seemed to be the
well, which was so injudiciously located as to receive surface wash
directly, and indirectly the offal from the house and barn, rendering
the water at once nauseating and dangerous.
The cities of the State should zealously guard against the possible
contamination of their water. Good water for city use is so easily
[Link] groups or gangs of wells at reasonable depths that no
community seems justified in drawing its supply from surface streams,
which are subject to progressive deterioration as population increases.
SURFACE AND SEEPAGE WATER.

The marshes, ponds, lakes, and cut-off lakes are relatively few, and
need no further mention at present. The rivers, however, are of
growing economic importance, and the time seems near when they
will be diverted from their channels into irrigating ditches. On this
point many persist in cherishing the error that rivers can not be
drained, maintaining that as rapidly as water is drawn off as much
more rushes in to supply the loss.
The Platte River flows east across the entire State, and is presum-
ably of greater importance than the Missouri River. Though becom-
ing entirely dry in certain seasons, the Platte nevertheless supplies
important areas with water for irrigation during the growing sea-
son. More important than this is the underflow water of the Platte.
It is a singular and highly interesting river. Overloaded and taxed
beyond its power, it can not carry its burden of sand out of the State.
Accordingly its energy is spent in shifting its sand bars from side
28 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. |NO.2».

to side and in forming a lace work of channels through its broad bed;
but beyond this, it is receiving constant additions of fresh sand.
Accordingly it has built up its bed with sand 50 to 200 feet or more.
Through this alluvial material there is an underflow of broad extent
on each side of the Platte throughout the State, which spreads out and
constitutes in part the important underflow, or even some of the sheet
water of the State. After the surface water of the Platte has been
diverted for irrigation the underflow in its gravels can be drawn
upon without limit if mechanical difficulties can be overcome. (See
PI. Ill, A.)
FLUCTUATIONS OF WATER LEVEL.

The years 1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895 were years of exceptional
drought. The whole water table was lowered, and springs, ponds,
streams, and many wells failed. During the winter of 1895 there was
virtually no rain or snow. That is to say, there was no precipitation
by which to account for an unexpected rise of water (apparently
real) which began early in the winter, and reached a point in
February and March which aroused general comment. Many, for
the past three years, had knots tied in well ropes whereby the well
buckets might be lowered each time into the shallow water without
roiling it. It was soon noticed that the wells were filling unexpect-
edly, because the ropes were wet some 10 to 12 feet above the usual
point. Water began to flow in channels hitherto entirely dry. The
dry beds of ponds began to fill. Excavations for railroad embank-
ments became lakelets. Springs which three years previously had
supplied fish ponds, but had become dry, began to flow again; and
damp spots began to appear in some farms. So many cases were
reported in person or by letter that the author took pains to send
out several thousand inquiries over the State. Two-thirds of those
who answered had noticed an unexpected rise of water; one-third
had not. The evidence is almost conclusive that this is real, and is a
matter of annual occurrence.
One explanation is that the decreased evaporation and the increased
cohesion of water in winter allows more ground water to accumulate.
The majority reported the rise as occurring in February. Stockmen
in the most arid portions of Nebraska depend implicitly upon this
rise of water, which they assert is of annual occurrence, and inde-
pendent of precipitation. This matter seems as worthy of critical
study as any problem connected with our grooind water.

METHODS OF RAISING WATER.

Peculiar and characteristic systems of hoisting water are found in

vogue in widely separated counties. Some methods are very primitive
and crude, while others show thought and ingenuity. It is very evi-
dent that the first simple windlass or pump put up in a community
becomes the model after which others of precisely the same type are
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. Ill

A. VIEW DOWN NORTH PLATTE RIVER FROM THE WYOMING-NEBRASKA LINE

i>. DAM ON THE BLUE RIVER AT MILFORD, SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

HARBOUR.] METHODi OF RAISING WATER. 29
patterned. Sometimes windlasses and pumps of communities, and
even of towns, are built as if from one model, heedless of faulty
design and poor construction. Two forms are illustrated below.
(See figs. 3 and 4.) Occasionally one sees water drawn hand over
hand by bucket and rope, but a much more common form, which is
virtually the same with the direction of motion changed, is the rope
and pulley. Were it not that this method is laborious and slow, men
might draw water for stock and women for domestic use for years.
As it is, these are soon replaced by windlasses having a mechanical
advantage. In the construction of these there is an occasional dis-
play of thought, and one man will make one stick of timber answer
where three, four, or five
sticks would have been used
by another. Others are elab-
orated until the cost exceeds
that of a good pump. Many
prefer the open well and wind-
lass to pumps, on supposed
sanitary grounds, assuming
that the iron pipe is un-
healthful.
In regions of high table-
lands, where the wells are
deep, the labor of drawing
water, even by windlass, is
su6h that hand power is re-
placed by horse power. Half
barrels are used instead of
well buckets and a boy and
horse can soon draw the water
necessary for the family and
stock. The author has seen FIG. 3. Open windlass and well curb.
the old-fashioned horsepower
and tumbling shaft in use pumping water for the house and for
irrigation.
The windmill has long been the popular means of raising water for
domestic use and for watering stock, and now, in addition, it comes
to enjoy the recognition it deserves as one means of irrigating land
where other means are wanting. It is the windmill which has ena-
bled the farmer to introduce into his home some of the modern conven-
iences of the city. Thus one finds farmhouses supplied with hot and
cold water, with bath, lawn sprinklers, and fire protection, and that,
too, more cheaply than in a city home. The windmill feeds a steady-
stream of cold water through the milk house, and thence to the stock
trough, a matter so small as to be often forgotten, yet so large as to
be of great economic consequence. When the water around the milk
30 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [N®.29.

pans is cooled, a greater percentage of cream rises by gravity to the

top. Where cool water is readily available the loss of cream may run
low, but in less favored States where the water is naturally warm the
loss may reach one-fifth. This, in a State whose butter products may
amount to several million dollars annually, is a large sum. The dif-
ference of a single degree in the temperature of water in a State as
large as Nebraska means a difference of thousands of dollars in the
total dairy products. Here the windmill effects a great saving, and
on well-regulated farms, while pumping water for the stock trough
by way of the milk house, it may nearly pay for itself annually.
The windmill has replaced the town pump, and in villages and
towns is now seen a sightly and well-kept mill and tank, supplying
water to the public by the energy
of the wind. (See PL IV, A.)
In supplying water for village
use, pressure sufficient to throw
water above the house tops may
be had by placing the tank or
reservoir upon high ground, or
by erecting a suitable tower,
which is the common method in
the level prairie towns. Occa-
sionally towers are built of ex-
ceptional height, to carry a
second water tank for use in
giving increased pressure in
case of fire. (See PL XXII, B. )
The whirling mills are neces-
sary accompaniments of Ne-
braska scenery. Their work is
admirable, though impossible
feats are often expected of
FIG. 4. Partly inclosed windlass and well curb. them. As the matter of wind-
mill irrigation is agitated the
receptive mind of the progressive farmer seizes the idea. Not
having experience and placing too confident reliance in the claim of
the local agent, who is not a wholly disinterested party, he under-
takes to raise water for irrigation from impossible depths. This must
not be taken as a reflection upon the indispensable device, the wind-
mill, which in many cases is as nearly perfect as skill can make it.
The pump, not the windmill, is at fault; but the main trouble lies in
the depth to water. "Water can be pumped 32 feet. Below that point
it must be forced, and from that point down mechanical loss increases
at a rapid ratio. When one attempts to force a 60 or 70 foot column
of water to the surface for irrigation his undertaking is barely within
the limit of possible profit; below that point the enterprise is doubt-
ful, if not dangerous. Farmers are urged to an immediate reeogni-
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. IV

.4 WINDMILL AND TOWER. TOWN PUMP AT VERDON, NEBRASKA.

B. EXPERIMENTAL WINDMILL AND POND ON FARM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF

NEBRASKA.
BABBOUB.] WINDMILLS. - 31

tion of th£ chances of discouragement, failure, and loss, resulting

from any attempt to force water over 70 or 80 feet for irrigation,
although this will undoubtedly be changed somewhat by improved
pumping devices still to be invented.
At present every community in the State can furnish examples of
misguided attempts to irrigate by means of water pumped by the
wind from wells of unreasonable depth. This must not place in
doubt or compromise in any degree the utility of windmill irrigation,
which promises to become one of the important factors in the develop-
ment of the agricultural resources of the State. Already farmers are
irrigating with profit from 1-acre to 50-acre tracts by means of one or
more windmills. Conversation and correspondence has brought out
from many farmers in semiarid and arid Nebraska the plain avowal
that during the exceptional season of drought, 1893-1895, the profits
from the small patch irrigated by the windmill exceeded that from the
rest of the farm.
HOMEMADE WINDMILLS.

Homemade mills are, of course, of low efficiency from a physical

and mechanical standpoint; yet they are capable of doing all that
is demanded and more. They cost little, wear well, and do all the
work that is laid on them, so that it makes little practical difference
whether some of them are mills of low or high efficiency. Of all the
homemade mills which the writer has visited, he has yet to hear even
a mild criticism offered against one by it§ owner.
What a contrast may be presented by two farms one with cattle
crowding around the well, waiting for some thoughtless farm hand to
pump them their scant allowance of water, the other where the cattle
are grazing and the tanks and troughs are full and running over to
such an extent that the hogs have their wallows to which to resort in
the heat of the day. Nowhere in his travels has the writer seen empty
or dry troughs on farms where the homemade mill was found.
The windmill has an important effect on population. In many
homes it is professedly the sole dependence, especially so with cattle-
men living in regions where grazing is the very best and where the
grasses are capable of sustaining great herds free of care or cost, sum-
mer and winter alike. The prerequisite is the irrigation of one acre
on which to .raise garden truck for the family, and this the windmill
renders possible. Without this, emigration would result, and the State
would lose not only important industries, but desirable citizens with
their retinue of helpers. In many places where the dairy interests
are important the windmill has rendered possible the production of
butter. This is noticeably so in the western or butte region along the
Wyoming line. Here in one instance, in a region of bare buttes and
sand hills, is a ranch with no other improvements than a low sod
house, a corral, and a windmill, with a rude milk house at its base.
Here is produced and sold annually $900 worth of butter (without the
32 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

burden of taxes or rent) incidental to cattle raising, which is the

primary occupation.
In this same region sheep raising is an important industry. A sheep
herder's camp consists essentially of a windmill and a sod house, a
tent, or a covered wagon. Around each mill are several thousand
sheep. On these high lands wells are deep and the hand pump
inadequate. It is apparent from inquiry that the windmill decides
the fate of this extensive industry, and the author has been par-
ticularly interested to note its relation to the percentage of increase
in the flocks. The rate of increase reaches and occasionally passes
100 per cent where ample water is provided, and falls below 80 per
cent where the mill is out of order and neglected. In their distress
for water the sheep neglect and even desert their lambs. A single
case may seem unimportant, but viewed as a whole by one who has
seen many square miles of such surroundings and conditions, the sub-
ject is exalted, at least in the mind of the writer, to one of great
importance.
So far the windmill has been considered in its relation to the neces-
sities of life, but its relation to some of the luxuries is not unimpor-
tant. The sight of a sod house with flower beds and a lawn sprinkler
is unexpected and almost incongruous. Very different from the pre-
vailing idea of frontier life are hot and cold water faucets. With the
picture of cowboy life as the half-informed press paints it one would
never expect to find in a ranch house marble basins and porcelain
tubs. Such things exist, and are due wholly to the agency of the
wind utilized by the windmill. The barest and bleakest spot is often
the site chosen for the district school, but a windmill constructed by
the pupils will change this barren scene not common to the far
West alone in five years, and in nine years the sunburned spot may
be so completely reforested that the district school itself will be con-
cealed, and the entire place and its young occupants be shaded in
summer and shielded in winter.
The author would not be misunderstood. The homemade mill is
not the equal of the shopmade mill. But the homemade mill is an
exceedingly important adjunct to the farm, and its cheapness is such
that many men who can not afford a shopmade mill are able to con-
struct one or more homemade mills. If necessary, there may be a mill
in each field or at every well on the farm. The advantage of the
homemade mill is its cheapness, and unless it can be put up at a
small cost it defeats its object. In many extensive frontier regions
freight rates seem necessarily so high as to preclude the use of shop-
made mills. Native lumber is cheap, so that the homemade mill is
entirely practicable. In Arizona there is promise that important
tracts of waste but rich land may come under cultivation through the
agency of the Nebraska windmill. The windmills supply the only
element of fertility lacking moisture.
BAEBOUK.] WINDMILLS. 33

In many countries, old and advanced in the arts, the use of the
windmill is unknown; water is raised by hand, grain is ground by
horse power, by water power, and by hand, and machinery is driven
in much the same way, while the wind, with all its potential energy,
is neglected. Our Eastern, Middle, and Southern States would also
profit by the more general use of wind power. Those States, too,
must learn that water, intelligently conserved and applied to the
garden, truck patch, and small fruit at the right time, means supe-
rior crops with corresponding profits. The writer believes that the
people of all States should come to realize that it is a much finer boast
to claim advantageous facilities for irrigation than that there is no
need of it.
There, is often as much need of irrigation in Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois as in Nebraska. Wherever crops are drought-stricken from
time to time irrigation is desirable. It is in these very humid regions
that the windmill and reservoir would be especially efficacious, for a
very little water run into the furrows at a critical moment would res-
cue the crop. In the Eastern States, where the thin, clayey soil is not
fitted to withstand drought as are the soils of the Great Plains, a res-
ervoir of water could flush a given patch with marked success. The
writer anticipates the time when the lessons of irrigation in the West
will be taught in the East, not only as a means of averting failure and
loss by drought, but as a means of greatly increasing the quality and
quantity of the yield. The windmill is one means to this end, not to
be relied on solely, but to be available in any emergency.
On the Great Plains, where humidity decreases as rapidly as evapo-
ration increases and where the available surface water is limited and
the wind must be depended on, the windmill becomes a necessity.
In traveling through Kansas and Nebraska 20 or 30 mills may be
easily counted at one time from the car windows. At first the author
believed that the windmill stimulus here was the product of necessity
during recent years of drought, but he finds that more mills, both
homemade and shopmade, have been going up during the present
humid years than before. They are used as luxuries rather than
necessities, and the present inference is that these winged specters are
harbingers of prosperity.
At certain times and in certain places, however, they are still neces-
sary, especially toward the less humid portions of the State, particu-
larly in the broad river valleys, where wells are shallow and the sup-
ply of water inexhaustible. The rivers of Kansas, Nebraska, and the
Dakotas are numerous, and some of them are important, but they are
steadily being diverted from their channels into the irrigation ditches
of States to the west. The total available surface supply is barely
sufficient for the irrigation of 6,000 square miles out of nearly 77,000,
one-half of which would be greatly benefited by irrigation. Recourse
must be had, then, to such other means as superior cultivation, or
IRE 29 3
34 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 2ft.

soil culture, for the catchment and retention of moisture; the

impounding of water in ponds, lakes, draws, and canyons; tunneling
into the sand hills and buttes; tapping the underflow of rivers; and
raising water by means of current wheels, and by pumps driven by
some motive power, preferably the wind. This outlook has given the
windmill increasing notice of late.
COST.
The homemade windmill is supposedly built during- unemployed
hours by the owner or by his sons; so the cost of labor is not reck-
oned in these estimates. Old wire, bolts, nails, screws, and other
odds and ends of hardware, old lumber, poles, and braces such as are
common to every farm, enter largely into its construction. Even
neglected mowers, reapers, and planters, old buggies, and wagons con-
tribute material. Here are to be found good journals with oil cups,
cranks, sprocket wheels, and chains, gear and bevel wheels of vari-
ous combinations. The farmer who is inventive enough to build a
mill is competent to see quickly the adaptability of certain parts to
his ideas. It is this use of old and neglected material which is par-
ticularly recommended in this connection, for in making a mill of low
efficiency, such as most homemade milla are, cheapness is the main
object. Many mills have cost nothing whatever. Others cost $1, $2,
and $3, and occasionally as much as $50, $75, and even $150. The
average mill, such a mill as is needed for ordinary purposes, can be
built for $2.50, which is an average from a large number, and its cost
should not, and seldom does, reach $10. The writer considers $3 a
liberal allowance for everything needed on the ordinary farm for the
construction of a strong, satisfactory, and lasting mill large enough
to pump for the house or stock. Such a mill, if rigidly made
inattention to this matter being the cause of more accidents among
homemade mills than any other ought to stand five or six years of
uninterrupted service.
CLASSIFICATION.
However modified to suit the fancy and caprice of various builders,
the mills may be divided into four groups: Go-devil or jumbo mills
of the overshot type; merry-go-round mills; turbine or opened-faced
mills, including battle-ax, Holland, and mock-turbine mills; and recon-
structed mills. These may be tabulated as follows, in inverse order
of efficiency:
Classification of the principal types of homemade windmills in Nebraska.
( Baby jumbos.
f With 4 fans.
(1) Jumbo mills(seepage35)... .... .\ Medium jumbos. -- 1 With 6 fans.
Giant jumbos.
Screw jumbos.
(2)Merry-go-roundmills(seepage44). j
 WINDMILLS. 35

With 3 fans.
With 4 fans.
(3) Battle-ax mills (see page 47) ...... With 6 fans.
With 8 fans.
Giant mills.
With 4 fans.
(4) Holland mills (see page 54) With 6 fans.
With 8 fans.
Giant turbines.
(5) Mock turbines (see page 56). Set turbines.
Without rudders.
(6) Reconstructed turbines (see page 64).
(7) Shopmade turbines (see page 65).

DISTRIBUTION.

Nebraska seems to be the heart and center of the windmill move-

ment. The famous Platte Valley, with its broad expanse and shallow
wells, is a veritable windmill arena. From Omaha west through the
State, a distance of 500 miles, and even beyond to Denver, there is a
constant succession of these creations of a sturdy population.
During the summer of 1897 the writer engaged the services of three
students, who were provided with teams, saddle horses, camp wagons,
cameras, and camp accouterments in general, and drove from Lin-
coln to Denver, following roads south of the Platte going and north
of the Platte returning. They found these unique and interesting
mills everywhere. Going over the same ground in person the follow-
ing year eight to ten mills were commonly found clustered about a
town, each widely separated town having a dominant or prevailing
type. Sometimes the mills were found on every farm and were too
numerous to visit and report on. They are also found in the Repub-
lican Valley and the valleys of the Loup rivers and their tributaries.
The State rises gradually from 900 feet in southeastern Nebraska to
5,300 feet in the butte region of the western boundary line, where
the wind is often unreliable over considerable tracts, so that difficulty
is experienced in running the most approved steel mills. The distri-
bution of homemade mills is confined chiefly to river valleys and to
certain sand-hill regions, where wells are shallow.

JUMBO WINDMILLS.

This is the lowest form of windmill. The jumbo, also known as

the "paddle wheel" and the "go-devil," is simply an overshot wheel
which bears the same relation to the air that the overshot wheel of
hydraulics does to the water. It is a stationary mill, consisting of
four or more paddles fastened to a horizontal axis set squarely across
the direction of the prevailing wind, with the lower half boxed in.
The smaller mills of this type are appropriately termed "baby jum-
bos." The larger jumbos are planted on the ground and baby jumbos
on towers or buildings.
36 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA-. [NO. 29.

Being mills whose method of construction is obvious, they are favor-

ites, particularly in the portion of the State lying east of Grand
Island. West of that point, the jumbo is usually replaced by the
battle-ax mill, which the author considers a superior type. The
jumbos are mills of low efficiency, but that matters not in the present
discussion. They are efficient enough for all practical operations;
that is the real question here, and theoretic considerations may be
fittingly postponed. Those who have decided preferences for' the
jumbo need not fear disappointment. If the mills are well built they
give satisfaction. If poorly made their efficiency may run as low
as 15 or 20 per cent; but if built on the most approved plan they may
register 40 per cent, as Professor Hood 1 has shown. In practice the
poorest can pump a great deal of water, probably more than the ordi-
nary family will use. In this connection it may be well, for the sake
of comparison, to state that the efficiency of a good shopmade mill is
at least twice as much as that of the jumbo, but the cost is ten to
twenty times as much. For the capital invested the jumbo is prob-
ably more efficient than the best steel mill. The jumbo gives from
one-eighth to one or two horsepowers, more or less, according to the
wind, the size of mill, and other modifying conditions. ,
Professor Hood and his students in testing a 14-foot eight-fan
jumbo found that in a good breeze it gave from one-tenth to one-fifth
of a horsepower, and in a 38-mile wind it gave 1 horsepower. The
power will vary according to the construction and position of the mill,
and according to the wind and other factors. In Nebraska and Kan-
sas the shafts of jumbos stand east and west, so that the fans may be
struck by the prevailing wind, which blows from south to north, or
at times in the opposite direction. The jumbo runs equally well
whether the wind is from the north or south, but is motionless in an
east or west wind. If from the intermediate points of the compass,
the fans are, of course, struck obliquely, but not altogether ineffectu-
ally. This virtually covers all winds, except rare and exceptional
ones; hence daily working is assured, regardless of shifting winds.
Nevertheless, some take the precaution to build jumbos with spiral or
screw fans, in. which event they do good service with winds from any
quarter.
Jumbos are not wholly ornamental, but that is unimportant. The
jumbo has served useful purposes on hundreds of frontier homes, and
has many undeveloped possibilities awaiting the genius of succeeding
generations of farmers. The average cost of such mills is about $4,
and they are sometimes used to singular advantage. Such mills,
veritable toys, which cost nothing whatever, and were built in play by
boys on the farm, have been put to work in earnest pumping water
for the stock.
1 New tests of certain pumps and water lifts used in irrigation, by O. P. Hood: Water-Supply
and Irrigation Paper No. 14, U. 8. Geol. Survey, 1898.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. V

A. BABY JUMBO WINDMILL ON GOODRICH FARM, NEAR BETHANY, NEBRASKA.

B. BABY JUMBO BUILT BY J. L. BROWN, KEARNEY, NEBRASKA.

U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. VI

MOUNTED JUMBO WINDMILL ON GOODRICH FARM, NEAR BETHANY, NEBRASKA.

BABBOtJE.] WINDMILLS. 37

BABY JUMBO WINDWILLS.

The baby jumbo on the Goodrich farm, near Bethany (see PL V, A),
is one of those referred to. It stands about 12 feet high, on the aban-
doned support of an old tank, and pumps water for the stock. Old
parts from a discarded self-binder were ingeniously adapted to the
existing needs. This small mill, with arms 2-£ feet long, with four
board fans each 4 feet long, and geared by sprocket wheel and chain
in the ratio of 2 to 1, cost nothing, and pumps from an ordinary well
water enough for the stock. This is an attractive and showy little
mill, especially to those who are studying such matters, and is a credit
to the boys who built it; it is introduced here, however, to show what
can be done in this line rather than to encourage mills of this size or
of this particular make. It is only a toy, but boys who can build one
of this size are capable of building a larger one and of constructing it
on approved lines if models are before them.
It is a safe assumption that, having at hand illustrations and
descriptions of various windmills suited to home construction, many
idle moments would be profitably employed in this work, both by men
and boys on the farm and in the villages. Accordingly numerous
examples, seemingly repetitions, will be reproduced in order that
each prospective builder, without compromising his own individuality
and personality, may have the right of accepting and rejecting plans,
so as to embody in his own designs the desirable features of others.
The baby jumbo on the Goodrich farm was considered the smallest
of its kind, but before a description of it could be penned a mill
smaller by 1 foot, which, however, stands on a higher base, was found
in the neighboring town of Havelock. This baby jumbo, built by
Mr. W. W. Her, has four fans 3 feet long, with arms 2^ feet long. It
is attached by a 16-inch crank and rod directly to the handle of the
pump. In a good wind (probably a 16-mile wind) this little mill,
perched on a tower 16 feet high, discharged from a 60-foot well 400
gallons of water in forty minutes, or at the rate of 10 gallons per
minute, as measured and reported by the owner. It supplies water
for a boarding house and for the stock and cost only $3.70.
The remarkable little jumbo designed and built by Mr. J. L. Brown,
proprietor of the Midway Nursery, 2 or 3 miles east of Kearney,
Nebraska, is shown in PL V, B. It cost only $1.50, but pumped suffi-
cient water to irrigate and save the garden truck, the strawberry patch,
and the small fruit during the most trying season of drought recorded
in the State. This is a surprising record for so small a mill, but it was
carefully planned and well built. Differing from the ^ordinary pro-
portions this mill is higher than broad. Its box is 3 feet wide, 9 feet
long, and 6 feet high, with fans mounted on a gas-pipe axis. The
axis and its crank, cost $1.50, while the rest was made out of the
sides and ends of old coffee boxes, in accordance with the rule: Build
38 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 28.

the jumbo cheaply or not at all. It is connected with the pump by a.

lever arranged in the ratio of 5 or 6 to 1. While means were not at
hand to test this mill, in a good breeze it pumped water and was
probably not overloaded by the weight of 200 pounds.
The practical benefits resulting from the mill are indisputable, and
are well expressed by Mr. Brown, its builder, who says that the profits
from the mill during the three years of drought and crop failure ex-
. ceeded that from the rest of the farm. The claim is not that the profits
are great, for such can not be expected from a small mill and about
an acre of garden; but when this is all that is left it becomes relatively
large. Let no one be deceived by this and grow too sanguine and
overexpectant. The mill may not net its owner over $100, but if the
rest of the crop is a total failure, this is worth more than one hundred
cents per dollar. A case is known of a cucumber patch saved by a
small stream from a windmill. This patch netted its owner $100 for
pickles, cut and marketed during the month of September. The mill
may easily exceed the profits of the rest of the farm during exception-
ally poor seasons. The windmill is not the redemption of agriculture,
but is an important aid at all times, and sometimes the only source
of revenue.
This mill teaches a timely and suggestive lesson in economy in such
work. Here by the exercise of a little foresight in securing an occa-
sional packing box instead of lumber, an excellent mill was produced
at a nominal cost, and could have been built without outlay by adapt-
ing an iron axle from some farm implement. This goes to show that
baby jumbos, large enough to pump for the house, barnyard, and
stock,~ are within reach of the poorest. The young farmer can often
profit by picking up, almost at his own price, discarded wagon axles
and old rods of iron, which are common at the village blacksmith's or
at the city junk shop. A buggy or wagon axle, with the hubs or
thimbles used for journals, will prove especially convenient to pros-
pective builders.
JUMBO WINDMILLS OF INTERMEDIATE SIZE.

Baby jumbos are the least efficient of the homemade mills. Those
of intermediate size, such as are commonly built by farmers and small
market gardeners,1 will now be considered. These mills average about
8 by 12 feet; some cost nothing, others $6 to $8.
A good example is furnished by Dr. Boardman's jumbo mill on the
edge of Overton. This mill was built to replace an old one put up
three years before, and it was not necessary in this case to study strict
economy either in the use of help or in the purchase of material.
Good, new lumber was purchased, and a carpenter and smith engaged
to do the work. When finished, this mill, with a box 6 by 12 feet,
supporting four fans on an iron axis, each fan 5 by 6 feet, with a
radius of 6 feet, was capable of supplying water for 100 head of stock;
its cost was $8. The same mill could have been built by a man of
 U. S. GEOLOGICAL. SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. VII

A. MEDIUM-SIZED JUMBO WINDMILL IN GARDEN OF M. J. OLSON, COZAD,

NEBRASKA.

I! LARGE JUMBO WINDMILL AT CUSHMAN PARK GARDENS. LANCASTER COUNTY,

NEBRASKA.

Size of mill 20 by 14 by 14 feet

U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. VIII

A. JUMBO WINDMILL (NO. 1) IN TRAVIS GARDENS, NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA,

SHOWING PORTION OF RESERVOIR.

Ji. SCREW JUMBO WINDMILL.

Photographed from model built by the author.

BABBOUE.] JUMBO WINDMILLS. 39

limited means for $2 or $3. Had it been a mill of six fans instead
of four, it would have been a good model for others. It is a good mill,
serves its purpose, satisfies its owner, and according to his estimate
will pump water for 100 head of stock and continue in good order for
five years or so to come. At that rate he is paying for his water
service scarcely more than $1.50 a year.
The trouble with all four-fan mills is that but one or at most two
fans are in the wind at any one time, while the six or eight fan mills
may expose three or four times the surface to the impact of the wind.
Accordingly, if other things are the same, the mill with more fans is
apt to respond more readily to light winds.
Comparable with this, in point of size, is the mill-of Mr. W. W. Good-
rich, at Bethany, shown in PL VI, which he believes was unnecessarily
well made. Extra expense was incurred by purchasing a hardened
Damascus steel axis, with good bearings and oil cups, which cost $5,
and made the mill when complete cost $8. It has six fans, each 9
feet long, with a radius of 5^ feet, mounted on a box about 9 by 11
feet and 6 feet high. As the fans revolve there is a resisting cushion
of air in the box, which must in a measure retard the fans. To over-
come this the designer has raised the mill above ground, and has
made the bottom movable in two parts or doors, which can be lowered
to allow the escape of compressed air when the mill is revolving
rapidly. When the wind is from the south the north door is opened,
and vice versa. Mr. Goodrich says that a gas-pipe axle would serve
his purpose as well as the more expensive steel one, and that with it
he could build the same mill for $4. The baby jumbo on this farm,
already described, pumps for the stock. The medium-sized mill irri-
gates a portion of a 6-acre tract set with egg plant for the Lincoln
market. Mr. Goodrich has gone to considerable expense in attempts
to raise water by horse power for the improvement of his farm, and
especially for his extensive market gardens, and the present experi-
ment is an attempt to use the wind as a much more economical means
to that end.
At Cozad there is a jumbo of medium size, which is sensitive to light
winds and is used in irrigating the market garden and small fruit of
Mr. M. J. Olson (see PL VII, A). The box, which was about 9 by 13
by 6 feet high, carried six fans, having a radius of 6 feet and a length
of 8 feet, mounted on a 1-inch iron axis with metal bearings and oil
cups from old machinery. A 12-inch crank with friction roller was
attached to the longer arm of a lever, 9 feet long (as shown in fig. 5),
the shorter arm, 6 feet long, being attached to the pump rod. It pumps
water with a 16-inch stroke from an 18-foot well with 3-inch casing
without cylinder. It has pumped 1,200 gallons in an hour, as meas-
ured by its owner. The mill and all incidentals cost $20.
The jumbo may be constructed out of almost any waste or idle prop-
erty. The axis may be of wood, gas pipe, or solid shafting, and the
framework may be of poles cut from the place, the box of old lumber,
40 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

the sails of duck, burlap, sheeting, fencing, weatherboarding, store

boxes, barrel staves, or old tin and sheet iron. All these adaptations
are seen.
Two jumbo mills on the market garden of the Travis Bros., of Lin-
coln, afforded the writer an opportunity to see the workings of these

FIG. 5. Jumbo windmill of M. J. Olson, Cozad, Nebraska, showing 9-foot iron axis, 3 by 4
inch arms, journals, 2-foot crank, and walking beam.

mills and their practical results. Though hastily and poorly built,
they demonstrated their usefulness, and are easily worth their cost.
One cost $8, the other $11. The two mills irrigate, as far as it is

FIG. 6. Jumbo windmills and reservoirs in the market gardens of Travis Bros., Lincoln,
Nebraska.

desirable to irrigate in this region, about 8 acres of garden. Accord-

ing to the gardeners the yield was ahead of the demand of the market.
Mill No. 1 (shown on the left in fig. 6), with a box 9 feet wide, 13 feet
long, and 8 feet high, carries four fans of burlap, each 9 by 4 feet,
stretched on arms 6^ feet from the center, and pumps water into a long,
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. IX

A. METHOD OF ATTACHING ARMS OF JUMBO WINDMILLS TO AXIS.

Photographed from model built by the author.

H. ANOTHER METHOD OF ATTACHING ARMS OF JUMBO WINDMILL TO AXIS.

Photographed from model built by the author.

 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. X

A. METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION OF SIX-FAN JUMBO WINDMILL CROSS-BRACED

BY TWISTED W'RE

Photographed from model built by the author.

Ji. METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION OF EIGHT-FAN J U M BO W I N DM I LL CROSS-BRACED

BY TWISTED WIRE.

Size : 12 to 14 feet long, 10 to 12 feet in diameter. Photographed from model built by the author.
BABBOUB.] JUMBO WINDMILLS. 41

narrow reservoir, 150 by 4 by 2 feet deep, skirting the higher edge of

a 5-acre patch. The grade was such that the rows of vegetables were
quickly flushed with water when necessary. At the four corners of
the box are four uprights or standards, carrying on top a pulley with
rope attached to a sliding cut-off or wind guard, to be raised and low-
ered in adjusting the mill to winds of varying velocity. These guards,
constructed on a wrong plan, greatly increased the expense for lumber.
Mill No. 2 (sho'wn on the right in fig. 6), of about the same size, cost
$11, and irrigates an adjoining 3-acre tract successfully, but is capa-
ble of doing more work.
In the case of these two mills a defense is found for the adoption of
the cheap homemade mill. The position of these two gardens in the
outskirts of Lincoln made two mills necessary. The enterprise was in
the nature of an experiment; accordingly from a business standpoint
it was assuming much less risk to erect two cheap mills than to put up
two steel mills, each of which would probably have cost twice as much
as the two jumbos together. If successful when well established and
past the experimental stage, the enterprise may deserve a better type
of mill, whether homemade or shopmade. (See VIII, A.)
The argument for the jumbo on the ground of experiment is further
exemplified in the case of the John Tannehill nursery and garden at
Columbus. Finding that his orchard thrived and that it was well set
with fruit, which, however, fell off before reaching maturity, he
inferred that this was due to insufficient moisture,-and proceeded to
experiment by building a large jumbo, which has become a sort of
landmark. It is a large mill, capable of driving two 6-inch cylinders
and of irrigating about 10 acres of orchard. It is built on approved
plans, especially with respect to the fans. The six 16-foot fans have
long arms (9 feet), not boarded up solidly, but with a space below for
the '' dead air " that is, the air which has struck the fan and used up
its energy. The object is to get rid of this as quickly as possible,
thus making room for fresh air with unexpended energy. There are
six fans, well bolted, wired, and braced, mounted high on a box, sub-
stantially made and securely anchored. The mill pumps water into
a reservoir, from which it is drawn off to irrigate the orchard.
This experiment, which cost $100, was a success. By artificially
supplying a little more moisture the orchard holds and ripens the fruit
which formerly dropped off prematurely.
SCREW JUMBO WINDMILLS.

The screw jumbo (see PI. VIII, JE>) is of rare occurrence, the author
having found but two in the State one at Trenton, Hitchcock County,
and the other at Ainsworth, Brown County. While it is altogether
probable that they are not so efficient as their enthusiastic builders
believe, they are successful and are not lacking in interest to the
student of windmills.
42 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

Perhaps one claim to superiority is well grounded. The screw

jumbo also known in the vernacular of the Great Plains as a "regu-
lar stem-winder" receives wind from the east and west almost as
well as from the north and south. Their builders say that they
respond to wind from every quarter. The sails, which are of duck,
although thin wood might be used, are not stretched on a line parallel
with the axle, but pass diagonally from one arm to that next behind
it, and so on, producing a twisted or auger-shaped effect in the mill.
The claim that the mills run with great steadiness is doubtless true,
for it is readily seen by a glance at the cut that each fan receives the
advantageous wind progressively throughout its entire length, and
that the fans are not alternating between advantageous and disad-
vantageous positions in the wind. A glance will be sufficient to show
that some position of the fans will be struck, no matter in what direc-
tion the wind may blow. The boxes for screw jumbos are boarded
up on the sides, but left entirely open at the ends.
CONSTRUCTION OF JUMBO WINDMILLS.

The jumbo, as before stated, is a mill of low efficiency at the best,

a fault made more pronounced by careless construction, lack of
rigidity, and poor anchor-
age. The mill, as well as
the farm sheds and out-
buildings, should be strong
enough to weather the blast
and storm. Lack of rigid-
ity is another fatal over-
sight. The round wire nail
when first driven home
seems strong, but constant
vibration may draw it
slightly, or the hole may be
enlarged so as to allow too
much play, foreshadowing
ultimate destruction. This
may be avoided by the use
FIG. 7. Break resulting from improper method of fast-
ening jumbo windmill arms on the axis. of an occasional bolt. Bolts
are cheap and may be ob-
tained at any hardware store. The fans should be bound together by
fencing wire, rendered taut by doubling and twisting. Good anchorage
is readily obtained by burying posts with crosspieces on the bottom
and stamping the earth firmly around them. These measures of pre-
caution should always be observed, especially in the case of large
mills. The probability of failure and disappointment should be fore-
stalled by rejecting the popular four-fan mill and accepting the six
or eight fan design instead. One of the worst errors of construction
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XI

. METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION OF GANGS OF JUMBO WINDMILLS.

Photographed from model built by the author.

li. METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION OF SCREW JUMBO WINDMILLS, WITH CANVAS

SAILS AND ARMS BRACED WITH TWISTED WIRE.

Photographed from model built by the author

U. S GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPtR NO. 29 PL. XII

GANG OF JUMBO WINDMILLS ERECTED ABOVE CORNCRIBS OR SHEDS.

Photographed from model built by the author

Ji. JUMBO WINDMILL WITH WIND GUARD OR CUT-OFF.

Photographed from model built by the author.

BABBOUE.] JUMBO WINDMILLS. 43

is,to weaken a part which is subject to stress and strain. An example

of this is found in the way holes are mortised through axes for the
arms^, as shown in fig. 7. When an 8 by 8 inch axis, having a span of
18 feet, is cut through at each end to admit 2 by 4 inch arms, it is
disqualified for long use.
Methods of attaching the arms are shown in fig. 7 and Pis. IX, X, XI,
which are self-explanatory. When loaded down with heavy arms
and fans it is a severe test for any stick of timber or gas pipe or shaft-
ing to span 15 or 18 feet. Accordingly the author proposes what he
may call twin, triplet, and quadruplet or multiple jumbos. By this
means a jumbo of any length and of almost any strength is possible,
for the axis has support every 8 or 10 feet. (See Pis. XI, A, and XII,
A.) This, the writer believes, is the means of making powerful
jumbos, especially if a chain and bucket are used instead of a pump.
In regions of shallow wells these gangs of jumbos might be used
for irrigation on a larger scale than is possible with the ordinary
jumbo.
It seems so essential that the jumbo should be cheap that the author
would minimize expense by doing away with the box and by adapting
sheds and buildings to this use. Every well-regulated farm has its
complement of sheds. It will cost no more to arrange them with ref-
erence to carrying the fans of a jumbo or multiple jumbo. Corncribs
which are built in pairs facing each other with a driveway between
seem suited to this purpose, as shown in PI. XII, A. In the mill
illustrated the fans are slowed down by a brake and are then tied, as
is the common practice. In this case the cut-offs or wind guards are
omitted, it being assumed that the mill is well enough built to resist
storms and wind. Rafters could be extended to support the axis.
The labor and expense in that case would be confined to the con-
struction of the driving parts or fans. Many mills could, be built
without cost. By the multiple plan mills might be built of sufficient
strength for shelling and grinding as well as for pumping.
Many men increase the cost of their mills by wind-breaks, guards,
or cut-offs in use. Some allow their mills to run in whatever wind
blows, others adjust breaks in such a way as to regulate them, others
build sliding guards, which run up and cut off the wind wholly or in
part, as need be. The author would suggest that it is as easy and
less expensive to let the sides of the box itself be adjustable, as
shown in PL XII, B, instead of building cut-offs, one on the north
side and the other on the south side of the box. If balanced, the sides
could be raised and lowered with little exertion. Or, simpler still, the
north and south sides of the box might be hinged so as to be let down;
then the wind, striking equally against the top and bottom fans, would
stop them. If objected to on the ground that the fans thus unpro-
tected are exposed to too much wind, it may be rejoined that there is
no reason why they should not be made strong enough to resist it as
44 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

easily as the cut-off. One could check the mill or stop it outright,
according as he lowered the door a little or dropped it flat.
The arms should be of good length, say 5 to 7 feet, thus securing
leverage with light fans, which seems better than to use a fan of less
radius and greater length and weight. The fans should cover about
one-third of the length of the arms. If the axis is of wood it must
be rounded at the bearings, care being taken that as little as possible
be cut away, otherwise the axis will be weakened. The crank is
easily made, and if the size of the mill warrants it there should be
one at each end. Some prefer wood, others metal; it is a matter of
indifference which is used, so that it is rigid.
PUMPS.
Mechanically the best pump is faulty. Other things being equal,
the endless chain of buckets is doubtless better. Here the pressure
is not intermittent, but is constant at all times. These buckets are
adapted to sprocket wheel and chain, and where the lift is not too
great these are to be recommended. The pump, however, is the
familiar water lifter and the one generally adhered to. When the
mill is large enough to warrant it, two pumps of sizes suited to the mill
should be used, but it should be remembered that it is probably as
great waste of energy to overload as to underload the mill.
MERRY-GO-ROUND WINDMILLS.

Windmills of all makes have natural limitations, and the merry-go-

round is a realization of an attempt to devise mills of unlimited size
and strength. The larger ones
are of rare occurrence, but are
seen in several parts of the State.
The smaller ones are mounted on
towers, the larger ones on the
ground, as shown in PI. XIII.
The former are the more com-
mon and look like elevated water
tanks, for which they are often
mistaken.
The fans revolve about a ver-
tical axis, and surrounding all is
a series of movable shutters,
FIG. 8. Hooded merry-go-round built by Wil- which come together and form a
liam Winn, Berwin, Nebraska, showing semi- sort of closed cylinder when the
circular hood on rollers guided by large rud-
der.
mill is out of gear. When in ac-
tion they are partly opened, ad-
mitting air to the fan on one side and excluding it from the other.
But these are quite as limited in size as other mills, and so defeat
one important purpose of the merry-go-round. This kind, which is
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XIII

SMALL MOUNTED MERRY-GO-ROUND WINDMILL NEAR LINCOLN, NERRASKA.

BAEBOtTB.] MERRY-GO-ROUND MILLS. 45

taken as the lowest of its order, is generally small, perhaps 6 to 12

feet in diameter and 6 to 12 feet high, exclusive of the tower. It is of
doubtful efficiency, though in active operation, and is intricate enough
to require skilled labor and expensive material, which in part unfits it
for general adoption. One seen at Grand Island, on the farm of
Mr. Henry Joehnck, when built fourteen years ago, rendered impor-
tant service in irrigating garden truck for the Grand Island market.
At Greeley Center a similar mill, 20 feet in diameter, is used for
grinding, there being a lack of water power.
The merry-go-round mill of Mr. William A. Winn, of Ouster County,
consists simply of a series of fans radiating from the central axis.
Around the same axis revolves a great semicylindrical hood or cut-off,
shown in fig. 8, running on friction
rollers and guided automatically by a
large vane. When in action half of
the fans are exposed and half pro-
tected, as shown in plan (fig. 9). The
mill is thrown out of the wind by
swinging the shield fully around in
the direction from which the wind
comes, thus covering all the fans.
These are mills capable of many
modifications and adaptations. They
are easily built, braced, and supported,
and no mill perhaps lends itself more
kindly to unlimited extension, all of
which should bring them into prom-
inence that they have not yet enjoyed;
important results may be expected
from these mills. This type of mill is
worthy of development.
In western Nebraska, near the Colo- FIG. 9. Plan of hooded merry-go-round
rado line, where the precipitation windmill built by William Winn.
runs as low as 12 to 15 inches and
evaporation as high as 6 feet, irrigation begins to be imperative. Here
10 acres have been successfully irrigated by Mr. E. E. Blackman's
merry-go-round, and this is more of a test than it would have been in a
more humid portion of the State. This mill, as he describes it, is 24
feet in diameter and carries numerous swinging door-like fans of light
wood 6 feet high by 4 feet wide. The fans are free at one edge, as
shown in plan in fig. 10, and, like a flag floating from the mast, they
swing edgewise against the wind, this being the line of least resist-
ance. But the moment the center is passed each fan in turn swings
back against the immovable arms and exposes its 24 square feet of
surface to the impact of the wind. Half of the fans are continually
in the wind and half out of it. Such a mill, well made, might be an
46 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 20.

engine of strength, but careful work and well-considered plans are

necessary to avoid resistance and loss of power. Mr. Blackman
insists that this is the cheapest and most efficient mill for its weight
that can be built. His mill cost $4.75, exclusive of home labor,
pumps an 8-inch stream, and irrigates 10 acres.
A similar, though larger and much more elaborate mill, designed
and built by Mr. S. S. Videtto, may be seen on a ridge near Lincoln.
(See PL XIV, A.) The mill is probably 40 feet in diameter and 12
to 14 feet high. It runs on a circular steel-rail track, and is con-
nected by cogwheels to a tumbling shaft which drives the pumping
machinery.
These mills are broad of base, and correspondingly stable. There
is no apparent limit to their size, and they may embody important
ideas.
It is certainly desirable to have some powerful windmills, and the
author has designed several which, though too large, perhaps, to be
practicable, were conceived in the hope that some available means of
raising the underflow waters of the Platte and other rivers might yet
be found. Here, at a depth of 4 or 5 feet in coarse pebbles, is an
inexhaustible supply of water, of which but meager use is made. The
advent of a good water lifter will revolutionize all this. At present
but an occasional seepage or underflow ditch is dug, such as the
Gould-Hollingsworth ditch at Ogal-
lala. The trouble lies not in the
supply, but in the fact that one must
go upstream 4 or 5 miles to get the
required fall. For private owner-
ship the expense is often prohibi-
tive. It requires no engineering
feat to devise and construct wind-
mills powerful enough to do this
work, and the author confidently
hopes for its realization.
The merry-go-round, when per-
fected, gives great promise. In the
construction of these mills the im-
FIG. 10. Plan of large merry-go-round wind-
portance of rigidity is again to be
mill of E. E. Blackman. emphasized, for especially light ma-
terial enters into their make-up.
Bolts and twisted wire should be used freely. Where cogwheels and
shafting are not at hand, they can be obtained in the market. The
axis may be a suitable pole cut from the place and guyed securely by
wires in several directions, and the mills may be so set between sheds
as to shield part of the fans; or swinging doors, as shown in PL XIV,
J5, may be used to possible advantage. They may also be mounted
on sheds. The arms ought to be made of new lumber, but packing
 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XIV

A. MERRY-GO-ROUND WINDMILL BUILT BY S. S. VIDETTO, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.

SUGGESTED FORM FOR EIGHT-FAN MERRY-GO-ROUND WINDMILL.

Photographed from model built by the author.

BAKB00E.] BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS. 47

boxes would furnish material good enough for the fans, which may
be made of wood, duck, or sheet metal. PL XIY, B, illustrates an
eight-fan merry-go-round windmill designed by the writer. The
diameter is 20 to 25 feet, and the fans 6 to 9 feet. Four gates or
wind guards, each of which is so hung upon the corner post as to
swing through 270°, easily throws the mill in or out of action. The
high-geared wheels and shafting below are not shown.
OPEN-FACED OR TURBINE WINDMILLS.
Open-faced or turbine mills may, for convenience, be divided into
five distinct kinds, as follows, arranged in inverse order of their
importance: Battle-ax windmills, Holland windmills, mock turbines,
reconstructed turbines, and shopmade turbines.
These are the windmills of preeminent importance. They represent
the most specialized type of windmill, and the man who is about to
construct a mill of some other form, though in great favor locally,
may well afford to consider the possibilities which this kind of mill
affords. The simpler mills are easily constructed, and are inexpen-
sive, efficient, and altogether superior, in the estimation of the writer.
BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS.

In its simpler form this mill consists of a tower for the support of a
horizontal axis and crank, to which arms are attached bearing at their
extremities fan-like blades, which have a realtor fancied resemblance
to a battle-ax; hence the name.
Justification for thisjs found in the fact that the arms which are the
handles each carry a fan, shaped in some instances like a battle-ax.
It is certain that their keen edges cleave the air in a belligerent
fashion. When viewed from the side an optical illusion is produced,
and these revolving blades seem to be slashing wildly at space in
opposite directions. However, they fight their way through, and are
victorious mills, worthy of praise.
Like the jumbo and set turbines, the battle-ax mill has its axis set
in the direction of the prevailing wind that is, north and south.
The axis may be of wood, rounded to fit in wooden bearings, or it
may be of wood, but with metal ends or bearings, or it may be gas-
pipe shafting, or, as is not uncommon, the axis of a buggy or wagon.
This is the fundamental part, and to it are attached the four fans,
six fans, eight fans, or many fans, as the case may be. The jumbo
itself can not exceed the battle-ax in simplicity, cheapness, or power.
The battle-ax mill is presumably the superior of the jumbo in all
respects. These are mills of simple, cheap, and easy construction,
and are efficient. In size they run from 8 to 10 feet, the more common
sizes, up to powerful mills 16 feet in diameter.
Grand Island, in the Platte Valley, about 90 miles west of Lincoln,
is a center for windmills. They are found in the town and for miles
48 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29

around. Irrigation in this portion of the State is not strictly neces-

sary. It is simply a way of increasing the ordinary quantity or quality
of the yield, and is resorted to sparingly. Some of these mills were so
nearly indistinguishable from the shopmade mills that they need not
be reproduced. The majority are of the battle-ax type, and are
especially commended to the attention of farmers and stockmen.
The four-blade battle-ax, about 8 feet in diameter, is the favorite
type around Grand Island and farther west. Such a mill, with pump-
ing capacity sufficient for 100 to 125 head of cattle, may cost $2 or $3,
but should not cost $10, and may be built by those who are inventive
without any outlay. Poles and strong limbs answer the purpose as

FIG. 11. Details of construction of battie-ax windmills, showing axis 8 feet long, 6 oi1 8 inches
square, iron bearings, arms 6 feet long, fans about 3 feet square, made of thin lumber.

well as new lumber, old dry-goods boxes furnish material suitable

for fans, and old wire, nails, and bolts are common on every farm.
The majority of the mills are made in this way, although some are
much more elaborate. The principle of the adaptation of discarded
machinery is particularly exemplified in the construction of the
battle-ax mills. In most of them the journals, gearings, rods, springs,
wheels, nuts, bolts, braces, and lumber of discarded machinery are
used. Accordingly they are provided with well-made and fairly fric-
tionless bearings, which help to render them sensitive to light winds.
The mill of Mr. Jacob Geiss, near Grand Island, which may be
regarded as typical, is a 12-foot four-fan battle-ax, with an axis 8
feet long, mounted upon a suitable tower. It pumps from a shallow
well more than is required for 125 head of cattle. (See fig. 11.)
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XV

A. BATTLE-AX WINDMILL ON FARM OF MATTHEW WILSON, NEAR OVERTON,

NEBRASKA.

BATTLE-AX WINDMILL ON FARM OF FRED WOULF, NEAR GRAND ISLAND,

NEBRASKA.
BAEBOUE.] BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS. 49

From Grand Island westward to Ogallala the battle-ax is the dom-

inant type of homemade mill. At Overton, on the farm of Mr.
Matthew Wilson (PL XV, A), are found two battle-ax windmills, each
on a quarter section of a beautiful and improved farm of 1,600 acres,
and each pumping water for 50 head of cattle. This is a large farm,
and with several hundred head of cattle, as many hogs, and a barn full
of milch cows and horses, it was found convenient to supplement the
work of two large Perkins mills with two battle-ax mills. The two

PIG. 13. Working parts of a four-fan Lattle-ax windmill on the farm of Matthew Wilson,
Overton, Nebraska.

latter were built at a cost of $1.50 each, and each pumps for its quar-
ter section. In addition, one pump irrigates successfully 1 acre of
garden, the water being conducted from the pump to the rows by
1-inch galvanized-iron pipe. Nowhere is there a more intelligent use
of material. Three cottonwood poles, as shown in fig. 12, properly
anchored and braced, constitute the tripodal tower, a buggy axle and
thimbles the axis, and thin lumber the fans. In these bearings kept
IEB 29 4
50 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

well oiled the mill runs as smoothly as formerly did the carriage
wheel on its spindle. The crank is adjustable to an 8-inch or 5-inch
stroke, as desired. (See PI. XV, A.) In PI. XV, B, is shown the
battle-ax wind-mill, tower, milk-house, and stock troughs of Fred
Woulf, near Grand Island, Nebraska. The diameter of the wheel is
10 feet, and the cost $3 to $5. This mill pumps water for 48 head of
cattle. The method of construction is shown in fig. 13. To stop the
mill the rope attached to the long crank is made fast to a cleat at the
base of the tower.
Six- and eight-fan battle-axes differ from four-fan mills chiefly in
numbers. However, they are usually considerably larger and variously
modified, and worthy of special
mention, at least in several in-
stances.
The six-fan battle-ax windmill
of John Harders, near Grand
Island, Nebraska (see PL XVI,
A), is 8 feet in diameter, and
cost, including tower, pump, and
pipe, $12 to $14. It is used for
irrigating a small market garden,
and is mounted on a firm tower of
cottonwood poles, broad at the
base. The brake, managed by
the brake rope, rubs against a
cogwheel keyed to the axle, and
thus controls the wheel.
The eight-fan battle-ax wind-
mill of Mr. Diedtrich Huennecke
(PI. XVI, B), near Grand Island,
attracts special attention, be-
cause it is made of old material,
FIG. 13. Method of construction of the battle-
ax windmill of Fred Woulf, near Grand Island, at a cost of but $14, including
Nebraska. Brake rope and crank to the left. the mill and an unusually large
and well-ironed water tank. The
mill alone cost $6 to 18, and in efficiency is a rival of the steel mill
costing ten or twelve times as much. The diameter of the wheel is
10 feet, and the stroke 8 inches. The mill was located in the stock
yards, bordered by stalls and pens, and pumped from a shallow
well all of the water needed by the stock. It was supported by
heavy cottonwood posts, on which was bolted the framework from a
thrashing machine, with journals and cogs in place. The cogs were
geared in the ratio of 3 to 1. The fans, which are 3 feet long, 14
inches wide below and 20 inches wide above, were made of the sides
and ends of boxes. Advantage was taken of the fact that an old
pulley was attached to the shaft (fig. 14). A friction brake, managed
U. S. [Link] SURVEY VMTER-SUPPLY PAPEH NO. 20 PL. XVI

A. SIX-FAN BATTLE-AX WINDMILL OF JOHN HARDERS, NEAR GRAND ISLAND,

NEBRASKA.

K. EIGHT-FAN BATTLE-AX WINDMILL OF DIEDTRICH MUENNECKE, NEAR GRAND

ISLAND, NEBRASKA.
BAEBOUE.] BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS.

by an old wagon brake, was cramped on the pulley, checking or

stopping the mill.
The largest and most remarkable battle-ax mills in the State are
probably those of J. S. Peckham, 5 miles southwest of Gothenburg,
and of his son, E. L. Peckham, a mile distant.
These are veritable wind engines, and they probably illustrate what
may be done by the homemade mill better than any of the other mills
visited. On this splendid farm, of a thousand or more acres, there is
an interesting array of windmills, houses, barns, grain houses, sheds,
cattle yards, orchards, vineyards, and the young but lofty trees of a
timber claim. There were four shopmade mills, one Dempster, two
Perkins, and one Aermotor, pumping water for the stock and for the

PIG. 14. Working parts of the eight-fan battle-ax windmill of Diedtrich Huennecke, near Grand
Island, Nebraska, with one fan in position.

house, and two giant battle-ax mills, driving two pumps each for the
irrigation of 15 acres of orchard, vineyard, and small fruit.
These mills were designated Mill No. 1 and Mill No. 2, shown on
the left and right, respectively, of PL XVII, A. Both were mounted
on the same kind of tower, and were identical in size and make.
No. 1, however, worked two pumps with 3^-inch cylinders, and No. 2,
two pumps with 4-inch cylinders, so that the results, as shown by the
amount of water discharged, were quite different.
The towers, each about 20 feet in height, were made of timbers 2
by 4 inches with pieces 4 by 4 inches for the corners. They were broad
at the base, about 16 feet square, and well cross-braced. The wheel,
52 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

16 feet in diameter, consisted of eight heavy wooden fans 5^ feet long

and 5 feet at the top, tapering to 2^ feet below (about 25 square feet of
surface on each fan). These were cross-cleated and very rigidly made
and then securely bolted on a slant to the double 2 by 4 inch arms.
The arms were made by springing and bolting into position pairs of
16 feet 2 by 4 inch timbers over the axis, which was 8 inches square,
and had a span of 16 feet. The axis was not solid, but consisted of

FIG. 15. Battle-ax windmill driving crosscut saw, built by A. G. Tingley, Verdon, Nebraska.

two planks 4 by 8 by 16 feet, spiked and bolted together. This offered

an advantage in the judgment of the designer, in that it allowed the
adjustment and keying in place of the 2-inch iron bearings which
carried the cranks and on which the axis was to turn. Their size
demanded special rigidity, which the designer did not overlook at
any point. They were admirably constructed, and ran as smoothly
and as noiselessly as a steel mill. They cost about $25 each (exclusive
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XVII

A. GIANT BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS ON FARM OF J. S. PECKHAM, NEAR GOTHEN-

BURG, NEBRASKA.

!>'. TWO-FAN BATTLE-AX WINDMILL BUILT BY ELMER JASPERSON, ASHLAND,

NEBRASKA.
 BATTLE-AX WINDMILLS. 53

of labor) and partly irrigated 15 acres of orchard, which they are

capable of irrigating well when the water is economically and prop-
erly applied.
As to efficiency, Mill 'No. 1, with two 3-inch cylinders and a 10-inch
stroke, pumped in a 13.5-mile wind at the measured rate of 14,760 gal-
lons in twenty-four hours from a well 42 feet deep, although one valve
was badly out of order.
Mill 'No. 2 made a better record, both because of the larger cylin-
ders and the better condition of the valves. In a 13.5-mile wind this
mill, with a 10-inch stroke, discharged at the rate of nearly 1,000 gal-
lons per hour (or to be exact 930 gallons per hour), or 22,320 gallons
in twenty-four hours, from a well 42 feet deep. This amount was
greatly exceeded when, later in the day, the wind velocity rose to 15
miles per hour. Though not apparently overloaded, Mill 'No. 2 ran
appreciably slower than No. 1.
From the farmer's standpoint, mills capable of doing such work can
not be purchased at a price commensurate with the cost of building
them. Thus some have built mills who otherwise would have bought
them. These two mills are a credit to any estate, and are commended
by the author to the consideration of farmers who prefer to build their
windmills for heavy service.
A mile distant is the farm of the son, E. L. Peckham, who owns
property almost as extensive as that of the father. The farmhouse
looks like a city residence, with its fine green lawn. The young
orchard, large vegetable garden, and flower garden, 2 acres in all, are
models, due to the water supplied by a mill exactly similar in all
respects to the original battle-ax mills Nos. 1 and 2, except that this is
more heavily braced and otherwise improved. It lifts water 27 feet by
two pumps with 4-inch cylinders, irrigates 2 acres, and sprinkles the
lawn. The total cost, including pumps and all incidentals, was $75.
t The remarkable two-fan battle-ax mill of Elmer Jasperson may be
seen near Ashland, Nebraska, mounted along the ridge pole of a north-
south corncrib and wagon house (see PI. XVII, B). Heavy semicir-
cular fans of wood, with a diameter of 10 feet, are mounted on a sub-
stantial axis having a span of 12 feet; to this is attached the sprocket
wheel and chain for transmitting the energy of the wind to the corn
sheller and feed grinder below. These fans are movable, and when
brought together form a circle 10 feet in diameter, with its edge to
the wind, in which position the fans are not affected by the wind, and
are accordingly out of gear; but when thrown aslant the wind strikes
their oblique faces, and they revolve with a fine display of force.
This mill is not so sensitive to light winds as shopmade mills, but
its momentum is greater. It drives a two-hole cornsheller and feed
grinder and a grindstone.
This is one of the most interesting and attractive homemade designs
in the State, and for novelty and originality it was awarded a prize by
54 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. fNO.29.

the Nebraska State Journal of Lincoln. It shells and grinds corn at

a total outlay of $11,' and gives entire satisfaction. The ingenuity
which characterizes this novel invention crops out everywhere on the
Jasperson farm, in the locks, gates, fences, and implements, and in
one irrigated field there is a remodeled turbine, described on page 65,
so well made as to be indistinguishable from the original mill.
Regular shopmade mills supplied water for his house and stock, the
homemade mill being used wholly for driving machinery. Unfortu-
nately means were not at hand for measuring the true efficiency of
this two-fan turbine, but for practical purposes it may be said that it
drove the cornsheller and feed grinder with ease. It seemed equiva-
lent to about 1 horsepower.
HOLLAND WINDMILLS.

The Holland mills, with their four slatted fans covered with cloth
sails, are so familiar in art that descriptions are unnecessary. How-
ever, as introduced into the Great Plains, they have undergone many
changes and -modifications, and the resemblance is sometimes lost.
As viewed in pictures, the great fans are mounted on massive sup-
ports. In Nebraska, however, they sometimes stand on slender,
spindling towers. They are frequently mounted upon milk houses,
corncribs, wagon sheds, and barns. Their identity is further obscured
at times in that the customary four fans are replaced by six or eight,
and the familiar duck sails by wooden ones.
Some of the strongest and best mills in the State are modifications
of these old Dutch mills. Though the picturesque mountings and
settings may be wanting, their efficiency and serviceability are not.
The smaller Dutch mills stand on towers, the medium-sized on small
outbuildings, and the large ones on barns. In size they range from the
smallest, 10 to 12 feet in diameter, through medium-sized mills, 15 to
20 feet in diameter, to the largest, which measure 36 feet.
The great Holland mill of August Prinz, 1 mile east of Chalco,
Sarpy County, favorably situated as it is for observation from pass-
ing trains on the Burlington Route, has become a familiar landmark
to travelers on that road (see PL XVIII, A).
The Prinz mill rises high above the surrounding grove, which,
though but twelve to fourteen years old, completely shuts in the
house and farm buildings. A closer view shows the large mill, with
fans describing a circle 36 feet in diameter, mounted securely upon
the large shed which constitutes corncribs and wagon shed, while at
the house is seen an 8-foot Gem mill which pumps water from a 40-foot
well to the house and stock trough. As a precaution against accident
and against insufficient wind velocity, the owner has a horsepower
device with shafting and pulley, which can instantly be attached to
the house pump.
Ordinarily the small windmill is able to supply ample water for the
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

A. HOLLAND OR DUTCH WINDMILL OF AUGUST PRINZ, NEAR CHALCO,

NEBRASKA.

i'. SIX-FAN HOLLAND OR DUTCH WINDMILL OF HENRY BORMANN, NEAR

PORTAL NEBRASKA.
 BAEBODE.] DUTCH WINDMILLS. 55

house, for 80 steers, 20 milch cows, 10 horses, 125 hogs, and other stock.
Accordingly the large mill has so far been employed solely for the
purpose of grinding grain, although it can be easily geared to raise
water as needed. In the amount of grist is found an easy measure of
the efficiency of this mill, which owes much of its merit to the fact
that its projector had built mills in Holland before emigrating to this
country in 1871.
With the ordinary wind of winter, when the mill is particularly in
use, the capacity of this mill is 200 or even 300 bushels of ground
grain a day. It drives an 8-horsepower feed grinder with greater
speed than horses could. It elevates the grain and grinds and dis-
charges the grist automatically, demanding no immediate supervision,
while the men are engaged about the customary duties of the farm.
With a good wind it is unnecessary to use more than two sails, which
give all the power that is necessary for ordinary work.
This being a large mill, heavy gear wheels and driving wheels, cou-
plings, brakes, etc., were necessary, and these were procured in Omaha
and Chicago. The total cost of the mill was $150. While this may
appear to prospective builders a considerable sum, it is not prohib-
itive. Against this sum must be balanced the efficiency of an
1 8-horsepower plant, the fact that the mill requires little or no super-
intendence, and that the grain is ground at home, requiring no ex-
penditure of time and money in hauling to and from the mill. A
windmill so well built is capable of rendering service for twelve to
fifteen years.
Here, as elsewhere, the author finds that those farmers who have
the ingenuity to invent and build mills have well-kept farms, the best
gates and fences, improved and excellently kept buildings, and an
air of unmistakable prosperity. In twenty years the proprietor has
become possessed of 320 acres of fine land set with hedges, groves,
and orchards; of herds of well-bred stock and fowls; of substan-
tial, convenient, and well-regulated houses, barns, cribs, tool sheds,
and poultry houses, and of all necessary farming implements and
vehicles. The author has driven for many miles through this favored
agricultural region, and scarcely less can be said of any farm visited.
They are large, well kept, improved, and free from mortgage. This
is but the beginning of the great windmill area of the State, which
extends thence westward for 500 miles in close proximity to the Platte
Valley.
On the farm of Henry Bormann, near Portal, in Douglas County,
about 3 miles east of the August Prinz place, stands an important
mill of home production, which, like the Prinz mill, its progenitor, is
a landmark familiar to travelers on that branch of the Burlington
and Missouri River Railroad. It is essentially a Dutch mill, but with
six instead of the customary four fans, which describe a circle 19£
feet in diameter. Making allowance for customary overestimates, its
56 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

true efficiency must be between 4 and 6 horsepower, and will run higher
when the mill is full rigged. The surprising part is that it runs the
grinder without full-sized canvas sails, its designer and builder find-
ing that it was easier, handier, and amply efficient to use wind boards
instead. These wind boards are simply thin ^-inch boards about 7
feet long and 1 foot wide, set at an angle on each arm. They are
quickly set in place and secured by wooden buttons. In a strong
wind but three of these boards are used.
The capacity of this mill varies according to the wind, from 75 to
100 bushels of ground feed a day. By purchasing shafting, belts,
pulleys, bevel gear, etc., at an abandoned elevator, and by making
patterns for the revolving head and other parts and having them
cast in Omaha, the cost of this mill amounted in all to only $50.
Considering that it is well built, that it should last ten to twelve
years, that it grinds all the grain for the stock and is capable of
pumping and driving other machinery, there is again a decided bal-
ance in favor of the homemade mill.
During the summer months when the cattle are at pasture the mill
is not in operation, so that the author made no attempt to test its
efficiency, believing that the 6-horsepower grinder was a sufficient
measure of its strength. This, like the Prinz mill, is so geared as to
be useful in driving other machinery or in pumping water, as occasion
demands.
TOWERLESS TURBINES.

It is doubtful if there is a better general example of the towerless

turbines than the one across the Platte, some 20 miles south of Gothen-
berg. This simplified mill consists merely of a wheel without tower,
axis, crank, or other working parts. The axle of an old wagon, with
spindle, thimble, hub, and wheel intact, was bolted to beams on the
south side of a barn, fans were nailed at a slant to the spokes, and a
bolt was driven in one edge of the hub with an eccentricity of 3 or 4
inches, to which the pump rod was attached. The mill pumps water,
but is dependent, of course, on south winds. From this simple form
there is every conceivable gradation to the best shopmade steel mill,
made of the finest material, and wrought with such nicety and preci-
sion as to return 90 per cent efficiency.
STATIONARY TURBINES.

The next higher type of the turbine is but little more specialized.
It has a tower, usually of poles, a crank and pump rod, and four or
more blades or fans. These constitute the whole of a mill which is
considerably more efficient than the extreme simplicity of its working
parts might imply. These are commonly built without expense, for
the crank, which is the only piece demanding outlay, is inexpensive
if bought first hand, and is usually supplied from old machinery; and
 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER MO. 29 PL. XIX

A. FOUR-FAN STATIONARY TURBINE WINDMILL OF FRIEDERICH ERNSTMEYER,

NEAR GRAND ISLAND, NEBRASKA.

Jt SIX-FAN STATIONARY TURBINE OF FRED MATHIESEN, NEAR GRAND ISLAND,

NEBRASKA.
BABBOUB.] TURBINES. 57

to the crank arms are attached to which the wooden blades are nailed.
The pump rod is often but a sapling. The axis runs on wooden bear-
ings, lubricated occasionally with axle grease. The tower is built of
old lumber, usually of poles. Such mills are numerous. Occasion-
ally these mills run on excellent bearings, the builder having detached
certain framework with its journals and crank from old machinery,
bolting them bodily to the tower, attaching arms to the axis, a pump
rod to the crank, and once in a while a brake to regulate the speed
of the fans.
A mill of this kind (see PL XIX, A) used by Friedrich Ernstmeyer,
of Grand Island, for pumping water for his stock, was especially well
built, and cost only 32 cents for a 16-foot board for the fans. It
was made of the oak frame and sickle driver of an old mower, which
was bolted bodily upon the cottonwood tower. This is an 8-foot
wheel, with pine board fans 12 to 14 inches wide by 4 feet long. An
ingenious brake was made by securely wedging an old, cultivator wheel
to the axis, and a set of springs and levers were so arranged as to
press a shoe of leather against the wheel, thus retarding or stopping
the mill as desired.
In the stock field of Fred Mathiesen is a six-fan set turbine (shown
in PI. XIX, _£>), which, though very crude and rustic, runs nicely in its
shopniade bearings the frame and journals of an old self-binder and
cost only a few cents, for welding an extension to the axis and for
light rods with which to brace the arms. The brake is nothing more
than a fence post, which can slide forward between the fans to stop
them and back again to put the mill in gear. The pump rod is a
small sapling. The diameter of the wheel is 8 feet and the stroke 6
inches; total cost two or three dollars. The turbine is used for
watering stock.
From these elementary forms, which are too numerous to allow
detailed description, we pass to the set turbine, with many fans. A
typical example, selected from many, is the mill built by Janak
Bros., of Sarpy Mills, Nebraska.
First attempts at designing and building mills often give results
which warrant larger undertakings, and one may see the first, the
second, and the third mill by the same designer, each an improvement
on the one before. It is- interesting to note this advance, which is
marked by improved and enlarged designs and by superior material
and make. An excellent example of this is furnished by the Janak
Bros., the elder of whom arrived from Bohemia three years ago (in
1896). Seeing that it was important for a neighbor to supply, in a given
pasture, water for about thirty head of cattle, he immediately built a
turbine mill so simplified that it consisted merely of a 10-foot wheel
made of weatherboarding, braced and wired together, mounted on an
axis with a 3-inch crank, which ran in journals of wood, bolted to the
top piece of the tower (see fig. 16). There was no need for a revolv-
58 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

ing head or vane, for this was a stationary turbine, with face set to
the south, and with its tower well guyed in three directions by twisted
wire. This mill cost altogether between $3 and $4, and at the worst
is sure to give three or four years of satisfactory service, in addition
to three years' service already rendered.
On the farm where poles may be cut for the tower and old lumber
is at hand, the expense of a 10-foot stationary turbine mill like-the
above may easily fall within $2.50 or $3. These are commended to
the attention of those needing cheap mills, especially to those who
have material on hand. Here the crank
and driving wheels of discarded reap-
ers may be put to advantageous use.
This crude wooden mill warranted
an attempt by the Janak Brothers at
something larger, better built, and
more complex in its parts. The result
is a steel mill 14 feet in diameter, with
galvanized-iron fans, mounted with a
revolving head upon a 35-foot wooden
tower by the side of the blacksmith
shop of the Janak Bros. The finely
built wheel was spinning without
a sound or vibration, and within the
shop the emery wheel, grindstone,
drill, bellows, lathe, and other machin-
ery, together with the pump, were
driven as steadily as though steam
was the motive power.
Their prestige as blacksmiths was
won largely by the windmill, which
not only drove their machinery, but
evidenced their ability. This mill,
well as it worked, was yet incomplete,
a fortunate circumstance, as it illus-
FIG. 16. Stationary turbine designed trates the fact that in a great deal of
and built by Janak Bros., Sarpy Mills,
Nebraska. machinery refinements and accesso-
ries are not essentials. The mill lacked
a rudder or vane, which necessitated climbing the tower and prying the
wheel face to the wind with a lever. This, however, in a region where
the prevailing wind is so constantly from the south, occasioned but
little inconvenience. At the same time this shows the prospective
builder that he can simplify the working parts of his mill and reduce
its cost without materially affecting its efficiency. Later on, as time
and means allow, vane, automatic regulators, and other parts may be
added at will. In the meantime the owner has the use of an efficient
mill in which but little cash or time is invested, and though less
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUFPLV PAPER NO. 29 PL. XX

A. GIANT TURBINE BUILT BY J. M. WARNER, NEAR OVERTON, NEBRASKA.

JB. FOUR-FAN GEARED TURBINE BUILT BY HENRY BOERSEN, NEAR GRAND

ISLAND. NEBRASKA.
BABBOUB.] TURBINES. 59

convenient it seems far wiser to have a mill like this than to be driven
from the undertaking by its complexity.
VANELESS AUTOMATIC TURBINES.

The vaneless automatic homemade windmill of W. F. Baldwin, of

Ainsworth, Nebraska, when visited September 12, 1898, proved to be

FIG. 17. Sketch of homemade steel turbine of W. F. Baldwin, Ainsworth, Nebraska. A, Regu-
lating fan and lever; B, Weight holding the mill in gear; D, Platform revolving about gas-
pipe axis E; F, Windmill head with gas-pipe arms.

one of unusual interest (see fig. 17). A principle seems to appear in

this mill not thus far seen in other mills.
Mr. Baldwin, who had formerly been engaged in several windmill
companies, and had thus acquired experience, considered it a piece of
faulty construction that shopmade mills must be subjected to the
60 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBEASKA. [NO. 20.

fury of the wind before they begin to throw themselves out of action.
This is a heavy and apparently an unnecessary strain, and to obviate it
Mr. Baldwin so arranged his mill that the regulator receives the force
of the wind before the fans. The regulating rudder (see fig. 17, A)
is counterbalanced by a paint keg filled with sand; the rudder, thus
becoming sensitive, reacts and responds to every varying breeze, con-
stantly throwing the fans in and out of the wind. When the keg
is removed the lever, falling of its own weight, pushes against a rod
passing through the hollow axis, and thus sets each fan in the
wheel edgewise, catching no wind. When the weight is applied, each
fan is thereby set to catch the wind to the best advantage. Between
these two points there is every gradation, the blades constantly
turning and adjusting and accom-
modating themselves to every
breeze. Mne mills of this kind
have been built and set up on
farms around Ainsworth, and their
owners are enthusiastic in their
praise.
The galvanized iron blades are
reinforced with heavy wire on the
edges, the back edges being hinged
to a fixed metal circle, and the
front edges to a slightly movable
rotating one, which turns the fans
according as the adjusting rod
moves forward or back.
The working parts, consisting of
a 2-inct gas-pipe axis to which
FIG. 18. Method of regulating the fans of the
homemade steel turbine of W. F. Baldwin. the fans are attached, carrying
sprocket wheels geared in the ratio
of three revolutions to one stroke, were supported on a small plat-
form, braced by rods, which revolved about a 3-inch gas pipe fixed in
the tower. The tower consisted of staight cottonwood poles, bolted
to anchor posts in the usual way. The axis runs on friction rollers,
like the ordinary grindstone. By using pieces from old machinery
the cost of this trial mill was but $5. It has been in service pump-
ing water for the house and stock for three years.
GIANT TURBINES.

The giant turbine of J. M. Warner, 4^ miles southeast of Overton,

Nebraska, is one of a size rendered possible by the method of
mounting it inside the tower rather than upon it (PI. XX, A). This
arrangement so far extends the base of support that the tower can
probably never be overturned, except by winds that would move
buildings. In addition it is securely guyed in four directions by
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXI

RECONSTRUCTED WINDMILL OF E. M. SEARLES, JR., AT OGALLALA NEBRASKA.

11. IRRIGATING POND AND RECONSTRUCTED WINDMILL ON FARM OF ELMER

JASPERSON, NEAR ASHLAND, NEBRASKA.
BAEBOUH.] TURBINES. 61

heavy twisted wire, anchored at a distance. This giant turbine,

which has no rival in size or strength, is an efficient innovation. It
propels the machinery of a 4-horsepower feed grinder. However,
the work is done with less dispatch than by four horses, and Mr.

FIG. 19. Method of construction of four-fan turbine mill of Henry Boersen, near Grand Island
Nebraska. General view on PI. XX, B.

Warner is disposed to attribute to the mill an efficiency of 3 horse-

power and possibly a fraction more.
In addition to grinding, this mill runs the grindstone and other
machinery by means of a system of overhead shafting with pulleys
and belts. It can also be connected to a walking beam, which drives
 62 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

two pumps with a 12-inch stroke, one having a 5-inch cylinder, the
other a 4-inch cylinder. These are too small for the mill, as Mr.
Warner finds, and 6-inch cylinders should be substituted. The lift
is but 7 to 8 feet, and the endless chain and buckets might replace
the pumps with marked advantage. No reservoir has yet been built,
but with one Mr. Warner estimates he could irrigate 20 acres suffi-
ciently for that region. As it is, he has successfully irrigated 8 to 10

FIG. 20. Homemade turbine mill of Lewis Jardee, of Newport, Nebraska.

acres of alfalfa and 6 to 8 acres of corn. The mill is large, and its
. cost, about $60, is not disproportionate to the work performed. A
large rudder, held in place by a weighted nail keg, guides this giant
wheel, which runs on a 2-inch iron axis, supported by a vertical rec-
tangular frame. This principle is apparently new and worthy of
development.
Plate XX, jB, illustrates a four-fan geared turbine designed and
built by Henry Boersen, near Grand Island, Nebraska. The head of
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 FL. XXII

A. RAILROAD WATER TANK AND WINDMILL.

i'. ELEVATED TANKS FILLED BY WINDMILL FOR TOWN SUPPLY; USED AT

FAIRMOUNT, FILLMORE COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
BABBODE.] TURBINES. 63
an old wooden pump constitutes the revolving parts, while the fly-
wheel and sprocket wheels of an old cornsheller were used for the
driving parts. But few bolts or screws were used, the parts being
very ingeniously wired together. Examination of fig. 19 will make
the working parts and plan of rudder apparent. The wheel is 8

FIG. Jil. biae view and details of revolving parts of homemade turbine windmill of W. F.
McComb, Grand Island, Nebraska.

feet in diameter; cost of mill, $2; cost of mill, pumps, and trough,
$9.50. The pulleys over which the gear ropes pass are made of
spools. This turbine raises water from a shallow valley well 7 or 8
feet and supplies 60 head of cattle. The timber shown in the back-
ground is 26 years old.
64 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

The homemade windmill of Lewis Pardee, Newport, Nebraska,

shown in fig. 20, consists of the thimble of an old wagon on which
the mill turns to which are bolted for the driving parts oak supports
detached from an old reaper. The mill pumps about 500 gallons an
hour, or 12,000 gallons in 24 hours, and cost 16.
Some homemade mills are such close imitations of the shopmade,
that the casual observer fails to see the differences which are apparent
on closer inspection.
The mill of W. F. McComb, of Grand Island, shown in fig. 21, is an
example. In appearance it is a shopmade mill; in fact every portion
of it is homemade. The fans are of metal, the rudder of light wood,
hinged, and adjustable from the ground to throw it in and out of gear
like ordinary mills. The mill acts directly on the piston, giving a
10-inch stroke. The head and axis are supported on a vertical wooden
box, which, guided by friction rollers set in the platform of the tower,
revolves upon a conical casting at its base. It is a 10-foot wheel,
pumps water by a 3-inch cylinder into the tank, a lift of 44 feet, and
irrigates the garden and lawn. It cost possibly $20, and has run
since the spring of 1897.

RECONSTRUCTION OF WINDMILLS.

In the provisional classification of homemade windmills, the recon-

structed mill is placed next in importance to the shopmade mill.
There are great possibilities here, which have been and may be taken
advantage of many times. In every community are neglected or
fallen mills and towers which might be reconstructed at a merely
nominal cost, either by the owner or by the purchaser of such idle
property. The essential parts are often intact, and it is a simple
matter to substitute homemade fans and rudders for those missing.
Many mills are standing in disuse year after year, while rough boards
nailed to their bare arms would start them going.
Many take advantage of this opportunity, and that others may be
reminded of the possibility a few reconstructed mills will be figured
and described, in the belief that this small number will sufficiently
represent all.
Reconstructed mills are to be found in every county in the State,
but nowhere are there better examples than at Ogallala, in western
Nebraska. Within the town at least five reconstructed mills are in
use, pumping water mostly from shallow wells.
At the livery and feed stable an old mill which has lost all its fans
and its rudder has been so rejuvenated by simply nailing 6-inch
boards to the bare arms that the mill is pumping water for 25
horses. This entailed no expense and but little time and labor.
Near by stands a reconstructed mill still doing duty in pumping for
the house and lawn, though furnished with six rough blades. The
mill which formerly occupied its place upon the substantial tower had
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXIII

ARTIFICIAL PONDS OF THE MOULTON ICE COMPANY, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, SUPPLIED WITH WATER BY TWO TURBINE WINDMILLS.
BABBOUR.] TURBINES. 65

been racked by gales and storms, and had been allowed to lose its
woodwork and so fall naturally into disuse. However, the essential
parts remained as a base, to which homemade parts could readily
be attached without cost. (See PI XXI, A. )
Within a few blocks is to be seen the most interesting one in the
place. It stands on a slender steel tower, like a veritable toy mill,
but it pumps water for the house, for four horses, and for the irriga-
tion of the lawn and garden.
The success of this toy turbine is due in a measure to the fact that it
is a reconstructed aermotor. Two sets of galvanized fans and rudders
had been demolished, and the last time the iron fans were replaced by
thin boards 5 inches wide and 2 feet long wired firmly to the six iron
arms. The rudder was left off; accordingly, instead of standing face
to the wind, it swings around automatically (because slightly eccentric)
and stands back to the wind. Thus the motion is reversed, and the
fans run backward, but with no apparent disadvantage.
On measuring the wind velocity with an anemometer, and measuring
the water pumped, the following results were obtained: In a 15.5-mile
wind this toy mill -lifted from a shallow well (12 feet deep) a trifle
more than 270 measured gallons in an hour, or at the rate of 6,500
gallons in twenty-four hours, its efficiency being one-eighth horse-
power.
Near Kearney is a reconstructed mill whose arms have been slightly
lengthened, and to their extremities were nailed light fans made by
boys of the farm from the thin sides of boxes. Although this gave a
rough and unnatural looking exterior, the small irrigating reservoir
stood full of water. The admirably constructed mill of Elmer Jasper-
son near Ashland, Nebraska (shown in PI. XXI, B], seems to differ in
no respect from the best shopmade type, .although it had been a total
wreck. It was purchased for $3 as it lay on the ground twisted and
broken, and hauled to the Jasperson place. At an additional outlay
of $7 the bent parts were straightened, the tower rebuilt, and the mill
reinstated as good as new, so far as outward' appearance and action
are concerned.
SHOPMADE TURBINES.
The highest type is the shopmade mill, which is so closely allied
to every well-regulated Western home. These mills are inseparable
features of every landscape, of every farm, village, and town. One
may count as many as twenty-five or thirty mills in view at one time
from the car window in passing, and thirty or forty in any town.
These mills have given to the country home many of the comforts of
the city. They enable small towns to have water systems with stand-
pipes, water mains, and hydrants, a satisfactory domestic water serv-
ice, and a supply with ample pressure for fire protection at a cost
much below that for similar water service in a city.
The windmill and tank are the conspicuous and characteristic land-
IBB 29 5
66 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO.29.

marks of every siding and station in the prairie. (See PI. XXII, A).
Asylums, homes for soldiers, orphans, blind, and feeble minded, and
other public institutions in rural districts isolated from city conven-
iences depend on the windmill. The town pump has given way to
the town windmill and tank, which easily furnish water for the pub-
lic watering trough and the public hydrant.
In villages too small to assume the expense of standpipe, water
mains, and hydrants, pressure for fire protection is often obtained by
carrying the tower of the public tank as high as need be, and mount-
ing upon it a second tank for use in case of fire. (See PL XXII, B. )
Precaution is generally taken to augment the mill with a good steam,
gasoline, or petroleum engine for use in emergency, or in case of a
continued calm. This makes an excellent and cheap system. The
mill is the main dependence, the engine being pressed into service but
occasionally.
In many towns and cities the turbine is used to pump water for fish
ponds and ice ponds. In the smaller towns the irrigating pond of
summer is turned to good account in winter, in furnishing an ice
harvest. In Lincoln, the Moulton Ice Company harvests its ice from
three artificial ponds supplied with water by two turbine mills.
These same ponds are stocked with several thousand fish. (See PL
XXIII.)
Under the refining influence of the windmill, the pioneer school-
house, first of sod, then of lumber, begins to lose some of its utter
barrenness, and sod, trees, and shrubs begin to grow.
ORIGINAL USES FOR SHOPMADE WINDMILLS.
The shopmade mill is often harnessed to homemade water lifters of
unique and original design. These are as interesting as the homemade
mills themselves, and are worthy of a special report, which the author
has in preparation.
One or two examples will illustrate this group sufficiently for the
present.
At Milford, on the banks of Blue River, may be teeen a large mill
and tower (see PL XXIV), now in disuse, geared to run an endless
chain of 34 buckets, each holding 4 gallons. This method of raising
water is one of the oldest as well as ene of the best. However, in this
instance, the mill is so completely overtaxed as to be rendered useless.
Smaller buckets and lighter machinery would doubtless give satisfac-
tory results. The possibilities of this kind of irrigation are great,
and every river bank shows some kind of an attempt to pour the
water upon the land. Some of these water lifters are driven by the
current, some by windmills, and some by horse power or steam power.
At North Platte the natural order of things seems somewhat reversed
through* the use of a tympanum wheel, run by a large aermotor,
instead of by the current. (See fig. 22.) The tympanum is primarily
U- S- GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXIV

WINDMILL AND WATER ELEVATOR ON BLUE RIVER, NEAR MILFORU,

NEBRASKA.
BABBOUR.] OTHER WATER LIFTERS. 67

a current wheel, but in this case, there being no current, its place was
supplied by a 12-foot aermotor, which caused the tympanum wheel
to revolve once a minute in a good wind and to discharge at each
revolution 8 barrels of water through the hollow axis, lifting it 7 feet
and irrigating 60 acres. This tympanum is beautifully built and

FIG. 83. Two-foot tympanum water wheel operated by 13-foot aermotor; invented and built by
David Thomas, of North Platte, Nebraska.

accurately constructed, but it is not at all unlikely that buckets or

even pumps would give equal results at less expense. The cost was

OTHER FORMS OF WATER LIFTERS.

Anticipating a future chapter on the water lifters of Nebraska, the

author, knowing the demand for hints on all such matters, can not
refrain at this point from mentioning some other water lifters, though
foreign to the immediate subject. The principal water lifters other
than the windlass, hand pump, windmill, horse-power, gasoline, petro-
leum, and steam engines are the endless chain and buckets, current
wheels of all sizes and makes, Archimedes screws, jacketed screws
running at high speed, etc.
The endless chain and bucket, of which there are many makes, is an
68 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [so. 29.

economic and successful water lifter, easily taken down and set up
again, and not easily injured. For short lifts these seem worthy of
first consideration.
The water elevator of John W. Karr, 1 mile southeast of Benkel-
man, Dundy County, is partly homemade and partly shopmade. Tak-
ing advantage of the failure of neighbors who had purchased a
link-belt elevator at Chicago a few years before, he "Obtained the
working parts for $5, and for about $2 in addition purchased lumber
(2-inch plank) for the construction of the woodwork. A second-hand
horsepower, with the necessary tumbling shaft, cost $13, and the mill
was complete. Digging the well was a matter of a few hours with
team and scraper, and the subsequent work was performed with the
shovel. A total depth of about 12 to 14 feet was reached, the water
standing 6 feet in the well. The well had a diameter of about 8 feet
at the bottom, tapering to 5 feet above, tightly curbed with boards.
The vertical lift was 7 to 8 feet, and two horses had about the same
draft in elevating 27 cubic feet of water a minute as in plowing. The
well discharges sand, pebbles, and water in a fitful stream. The sand
is fine and works into and fills the well. Over 100 cubic feet of sand
and coarse gravel were forced out last summer (1898), silting down
the entrance of the irrigating ditch, which had to be dug over repeat-
edly. The sand here is fine and the delivery of water is too slow to
supply the pump, but a few feet lower the gravel is coarse and the
supply of water unlimited. This elevator will ultimately be attached
to suitable windmill power, so as to use wind or horse power as occa-
sion demands.
Mr. Karr irrigates about 2 acres of garden truck and 10 or 12 acres
of alfalfa by contour ditches about 20 feet apart. Though the roots
find ample water below, that portion of the field yielded best which
was irrigated most, while the portions not irrigated at all were dead
at least to the root. The mill has, as it stands but not at its best
a capacity of 38,000 to 40,000 cubic feet a day according to the owner's
measurements, and his claims were verified by the author as long as
he watched its operations.
The lift here, which represents the conditions of the region, was
scarcely more than 12 to 14 feet. Many failures in the matter of irri-
gating in this way result, as the author finds, from ignorance and bad
management. Those who use intelligence and forethought are suc-
cessful. Those who dig into fine sand, oblivious of the fact that it
delivers water slowly, though the amount is unlimited, abandon the
project without attempting to dig deeper or broader, or without tun-
neling so as to increase the surface for seepage. The fine sand also
fills the well rapidly unless proper precaution is exercised. The result
is that new elevators are soon for sale at second-hand price, and the
man who is capable of maturing his plans gets the benefit of his neigh-
bor's failure.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXV

THIRTY-FOOT CURRENT WATER WHEEL ON BRANCH OF HAT CREEK, SIOUX

COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

B. THIRTY-FIVE-FOOT CURRENT WATER WHEEL NEAR HOT SPRINGS, SOUTH

DAKOTA.
BABBOUB.] TRANSMISSION AND STORAGE OF POWEE. 69

A similar but larger water elevator is that of William James, near

Crete, Nebraska. By purchasing Sieman & Sehuske's buckets and
chains and adapting them to his own power he has a water elevator
capable of discharging 2,000 gallons a minute, the lift being 26 feet.
Horse power and steam power are used according to the amount of
water needed.
Mr. James first began to irrigate by hauling water from the creek
and sprinkling it on the land. Finding this work slow and laborious,
he built the elevator and soon had 50 acres successfully under ditch.
Mr. James at the Nebraska State Fair of 1896 obtained second place
for Saline County and received cash prizes to the amount of $300
and other awards to the value of $200.
Wherever there are live streams with good currents the current
wheel is very common. Though changed and modified in many ways,
the general plan is the same. The force of the current causes the
wheel to turn, and in so doing a certain amount of water is caught in
boxes or receptacles, carried to the top, and then discharged into a
trough. Boxes, paint kegs, barrels, etc., are sometimes pressed into
service and attached to the wheel in place of buckets.
The current wheel designed and built by David Hunter near Suther-
land, Lincoln County, consists of eight swinging troughs each of 4
gallons' capacity hung to the eight paddles. These are emptied in suc-
cession as they come to the top. The cost of construction,was $100 v
Large current wheels are capable of doing extensive work, and are
engines of economic importance.
In Sioux County, on a branch of Hat Creek, may be seen a well-
built current wheel (shown in PL XXV, A) 30 feet in diameter a'nd
capable of irrigating 15 to 20 acres, and farther north, at Hot Springs,
South Dakota, may be seen a magnificent current wheel (shown in
PI. XXV, B) 35 feet in diameter, which is said to yield to its owner a
cash money rental of several thousand dollars annually. In the fig-
ure showing this stately wheel the stream, which is small, though
swift, is concealed by the rank growth of weeds and brush.

TRANSMISSION AND STORAGE OF WINDMILL POWER.

It is often found desirable to transmit the energy of the windmill to

some other point, perhaps to the milk house or to the barn, in which
case the mill, while pumping for the house or barn, may also drive
one or more pumps at other points. When the distance is but a few
feet the walking beam or the rocker shaft or similar devices are used,
but the distance may be too great. The energy of the mill is often
transmitted from one field to another, sometimes over hills and down
draws. In such eases the energy is transmitted by strong wires
attached to wooden quadrants or angle blocks. Though crude, they
do good work and are practically as useful as the angle irons. It
70 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [N0.29.

seems better economy for the busy and well-*to-do farmer to purchase
these quadrants outright from his nearest windmill house, but for
those who can better afford to spend energy and time than money the
wooden angle block (see fig. 23) will prove an acceptable substitute
for a better article.
If some of the surplus energy of tlie wind during certain seasons
or during the more windy hours of the day could be conserved, it
would apparently equalize matters to that extent. The best means
to that end at present is literally to bottle it. That is, the windmill
must compress the air into stout iron cylinders, or bottles, to be drawn

FIG. 33. Transmission of power of windmill by oscillating wires.

off and used in any way desired. A small stream of compressed air
admitted at the bottom of a tubular well often causes the water to
flow as if it were an artesian well.
In many of our artesian regions there are countless spots in which
water rises under pressure and in that sense is artesian but still
does not flow over the surface. Such wells, treated to a small stream
of compressed air, would flow vigorously like small '' spouters." So
far as can be learned nothing of this sort has yet been attempted in
Nebraska, although it is contemplated. The park board of Omaha
BAEBOUE.] RAINFALL IN NEBRASKA. 71

has long considered this as a means of converting certain negative

artesian wells into positive ones for the improvement of the park
system of the city. In the Great Plains, where there is so much
energy stored in the winds, a great natural resource seems to be going
to waste for lack of development. It may be conserved by using the
windmill to charge storage batteries.

PKECIPITATIOX NEBRASKA.

The climate of Nebraska is characterized by a low percentage of

cloudiness, by a correspondingly large amount of sunshine, and by a
dry and healthful atmosphere, whose chill in winter is less severe
and whose heat in summer is less oppressive because of the low
humidity.
Situated far inland, there are no great bodies of water to furnish
evaporation. Little moisture finds its way from the Pacific slope,
because of the Rocky Mountains. The rain-bearing winds come from
the southeast, and the ultimate source of precipitation in Nebraska
is the Gulf of Mexico. Although rainfall is rather limited, there is
compensation in the fact that it comes at the season when crops are
growing, and also in the fact that so great a proportion is absorbed and
retained in the soil.
Professors Swezey and Loveland, in Bulletin 45 of the Agricultural
Experiment Station of Nebraska, have shown that
of the 23.33 inches of annual rainfall in Nebraska 16.08 inches, or 69 per cent of
the entire amount, falls during the five months of the growing season, April to
August, inclusive. In order to show how we compare in this respect with other
States the following table is introduced. It shows what per cent of the total
yearly rainfall occurs/in these same five months in other localities.

1 <>
* 1 1
a
^
O
\
^

3.CL1

3.51
f ^$ 1
<
3 I o
3
1
oroc»&
2.t,2
irain
f
of
nches

O6S

|
6.3
°i
1
57
.
1.16

f
6.5
1 - 'grrc

Q.Z\ 12.1
Wl>19

10.2
5 W

9.9
numbe r of reliny da ys
7/7

PIG. 34. Monthly precipitation in Nebraska.

65
)

f
I
6.6
1
6.0
....

0.68

I
4./
0.69

I
6.0
72 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

Rainfall during the growing season in various localities.

Station. Per cent.

St. Louis, Mo ............................. .......................... 48.00

Cheyenne, Wyo ............. ............._...._.....-.---._.---..... 71.00
Dodge City. Kans ...... ..__.-.-......-.. ...... ..................... 78.00
North [Link]. ___________._._...__..____.._-._.,__....__..__...._ 72.00
Omaha, Nebr ..--......................._-........-......---.--.-..... 67.00
Huron, S. Dak _................ .. ................................... 74.00
St. Paul, Minn-.-. -.-..--.._..__-_.._____._.._..---..-.--.-_---..---.. 61.00
Duluth, Minn.. ...... ................. ........ .......... ....... .... 57.00
Davenport, Iowa ...... .......-.--....---..._--.-. .--...-----.-----. 55.00
Keokuk, Iowa. . .-.._._-_._...___.______.-.._____-___-._---..-.----... 54.00
Nebraska in general. ...__._______._ .................---.---._.-.-..... 69.00

It thus appears that the States of Nebraska, Kansas, Dakota, and Wyoming,
with their none too plenteous supply of rainfall, have, on the other hand, the
advantage over the States lying farther to the east that a large percentage of this
rainfall occurs in the growing season, when it is most useful, and that as we go
eastward the percentage gradually falls off, particularly toward the southeast, or,
in other words, in the direction toward which the actual amount of rainfall
increases most decidedly; so that if we compare the-rainfall of the growing season
alone in the different localities, Nebraska does not appear in so unfavorable a
light as her small yearly rainfall would indicate.

Table showing the annual precipitation in Nebraska and other States.

States. Inches.

Indiana, to 1894 ..............._........_............._..........-... 89.70

88.05
Iowa.......... -----...........-.-......-...........-..-..-..-----..... 34.88
Kansas _...._...-.......-......................-........-............ 26.67
Kentucky. . ....-._-....... ........................................... 45.60
Michigan, to 1896 ...... .........--...----...-.-......-..-...:......... 80.88
Missouri, to January, 1895 _.--...__..-_--....-----... ................ 37.74
Nebraska ...-.- ._....._ _--..__..____..-.. .--.........-__---------.. 28.88
Six New England States, to 1896 .......... ........................... 44. 51
New York .... ..._.............................. .._-..--...--.----... 87.52
North Dakota.. .................. ................................^.... 18.88
Ohio, fifteen years to 1896 .,....._.......-...-.......--............... 89.46
South Dakota, to 1896.............. .................................. 19.97
Wisconsin .--..-...-...................__........-..-..........._....- 32.06
Wyoming, five years to 1896- ......... ..--....-._..--....-...-........ 13.35
BABBOTTB.] WATER SUPPLY FOR TOWNS. 73

SURFACE WATER AVAILABLE FOR IRRIGATION. .

The first writer of prominence in Nebraska who advocated irriga-

tion was Mr. Lewis E. Hicks, at that time professor in the University
of Nebraska. His paper aroused such vehement opposition from the
country press of the State at large that his position in the university
was threatened. His opponents even went so far as to threaten the
university itself. Hon. William R. Akers, secretary of the State
board of irrigation, was among the first to put the question to a prac"-
tical test, although in the face of open and avowed opposition, by
building an irrigation plant in the fall of 1887. Since that time the
growth of irrigation in Nebraska has scarcely been surpassed else-
where ; many miles of ditches have been built and many acres of other-
wise sterile land brought under cultivation. There are at present
in the office of the State board of irrigation 1,000 claims and appli-
cations, covering a total acreage of more than 4,375,321 acres for
which water is claimed, the increase in land values amounting to ten
to twelve million dollars.
Irrigation, wherever it is practicable, settles the matter of subsist-
ence, for it supplies the one and only lacking soil constituent. But
expectations must be kept within the bounds of reason, for there is a
natural limit to this important element of our soil fertility, because
the total supply of available surface water is sufficient to cover but
5,723 square miles, according to careful computation made by Prof.
O. V. P. Stout an area about equal to the combined areas of Seotts
Bluff, Banner, Kimball, and Cheyenne counties. Though large, the
relative insignificance of this tract as compared with the 77,000 square
miles of the State is apparent. This area may be increased some-
what by pumping water from underground sources, which promises
most encouraging results.
The development of windmills and other water lifters of all sorts
for purposes of irrigation has been also almost as phenomenal as that
of the growth of ditches themselves during the last four years, and,
because of their wider applicability, bids fair to be of even greater
usefulness.
SUPPLY FOR TOWNS AND CITIES.
Surface water, which is an important source of city supply in many
of the Eastern States where rivers are perennial and lakes abound, is
of little consequence for city and village use in Nebraska, for the
obvious reason that few lakes (except ponds) exist and perennial
rivers and streams are few. Accordingly but little surface water is
furnished for cities and towns, and thus the use of water which must
suffer steady and progressive deterioration and contamination is
avoided.
The cities and towns along the lower reaches of streams are not
condemned to the fate of using the sewage and filth contributed by
74 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO.:

settlements above, nor of obtaining water from the same lake which
receives their offal. Instead, the supply is ground water of almost
inexhaustible quantity and superior quality, found in deep, gravelly
soils, where extensive sheets of "clay preclude the possibility of pollu-
tion by surface matter. It is safe to state that this is and must con-
tinue to be the source of supply alike for city and country homes.
Cisterns are often built to catch soft water for the bath and laundry,
but the use of such water for drinking is very limited. Although
the ordinary well water of most of the State is hard, it is not injuri-
ous. The hardness is due to lime in solution. Neither is the yellow
and turbid water, which has given the Missouri the fitting appellation
"The Great Muddy," necessarily injurious. The color is due to clay
in mechanical suspension in the water, and its presence affects its
.appearance rather than its healthfulness. Such inorganic particles
can be taken into the'system without fear.

FIG. 35. Plan of waterworks at Kearney, Nebraska.

tr
The natural and simplest method is to draw city water supplies
from streams, as is done in the case of Omaha, where the water is
taken from the Missouri far above the city and allowed to stand in
settling basins, whence it is pumped into the city mains. Notwith-
standing prejudice against the milky color of this water, there is no
reason for condemning it, for the upper reaches of this river are still
so sparsely settled that the present pollution is unimportant. Interior
towns far from any stream, working on the plan that if one well can
supply the individual many such can supply a community, dig and
connect gangs of wells. On this plan excellent water is furnished to-
the citizens of Lincoln, Hastings, Kearney, and smaller towns.
Kearney is in the Platte Valley, 22 feet above the level of the river,
where an inexhaustible underflow can be had even in shallow wells.
From one large 30-foot well, 32 feet deep, and twenty-four tubular
wells a supply of water is obtained which can not be lowered and
whose quality has given entire satisfaction. (See PL XXVI and fig.
25. ) This is a source of pure water that can be depended on for years
to come.
II. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXVI

WATERWORKS AT KEARNEY, NEBRASKA.

BAEBOUE.] SALT WATER. 75

At Hastings a 10-inch well, 305 feet deep, yields 40,000 gallons per
hour for city use. t
The water supply of Lincoln is pumped at three stations the Rice
pumping station, the F street pumping station, and the South street
pumping station from gangs of tubular wells. The Rice pumping
station, which furnishes the best water in the city, is situated in the
Antelope Valley, at M and Twenty-fifth streets. Water is obtained
here from a gang of fifteen tubular wells in the Dakota Cretaceous
averaging about 135 feet in depth, which supply about 1,200,000 gal-
lons per twenty-four hours.
Mr. Ferdinand Bonstedt, the city engineer, thinks that he notices a
slight decrease in the amount of water yielded by these wells. At the
F street pumping station a large open well, 50 feet wide by 60 feet
deep, was dug through one layer of water-bearing gravel down through
clay to a second water-bearing gravel of rapid delivery. In order to
increase the water supply a 6-inch tubular well was sunk in the middle
of the open well to a depth of 15 feet, and artesian water was struck,
but, unfortunately, it proved to be saline. The pipe was capped, but
the saline water was under sufficient pressure to force a passage along
the sides of the tubing and thence into the open well, rendering the
water so salt that a boiler-steel caisson, 5 feet in diameter, was settled
around it, and this is pumped out as filled. Nevertheless, the water
of this station has grown more salt from year to year, and the well
must be abandoned.
About a mile south of this, in the same valley, is the South street
station, with a rather complex gang of sixty-eight wells, yielding
1,000,000 gallons per day. Here, too, the salinity of the water has
increased to such an extent that the plant is virtually condemned, and
test wells are being bored in other parts of the city in the hope of
finding water equal in quality to that furnished by the Rice station.
West of Lancaster County there is little fear of encountering saline
water unless city wells are dug to unusual depths, although as far
west as Hastings, in Adams County, saline water was found at about
1,000 feet in 1887, and the well was necessarily abandoned.
SAI/T WATER.
Throughout southeastern Nebraska salt wells are so numerous that
it is often uncertain how to avoid them. In pools, surface wells, and
deep wells a strong brine is often met. The most conspicuous salt
marsh is that of the extensive flat on Salt Creek, near West Lincoln,
which has been retained by the State as public land.
Here at one time a considerable industry sprang up, and, as the
early founders of the State had hoped, salt was produced and shipped
to neighboring States. Here the early freighters to the mountains
bought their supply. With the discovery of the salt beds of Kansas,
however, this industry could no longer survive. This basin, which
is a mile or two across, is apparently depressed below the surrounding
76 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 92.

level, and one side has been cut away by a small drainage line. This
has since been dammed so as to form a salt lake and a pleasure resort,
and the basin is now occupied by a lake, which is about 1^ miles
across. Numerous salt springs rise from its bottom and along its
sides, thus supplying it with salt water. In addition, the abandoned
test well (bored to a depth of 2,463 feet) is feeding out into it a 6-inch
stream of salt water. In ordinary wells it is often found that fresh
water can be drawn from the top and salt water from the bottom.
The fresh water floats because of its lower density as compared
with salt water. Considerable care is exercised in such cases in low-
ering the well bucket, so that the water may be agitated as little as
possible in order to prevent the salt and the fresh water from becom-
ing mixed. In one well the pump is so arranged as apparently to
yield salt water or fresh water from the same pipe by placing one
pipe inside of the other.
Wells in southeastern Nebraska in the region of the Carboniferous
below a depth of 150 feet are liable to be or to become saline. Below
this to a depth of 500 to 1,000 feet or more salt water is to be more or
less expected. The salinity is greatest at 250 to 300 feet. It is strong
at 500 feet, and the water is distinctly salt at 1,000 feet. When the
deep well at Beatrice, 1,260 feet, was bored for the city supply the
quantity but not the quality of water was expressly stipulated in the
contract. When all the requirements were met the city refused to
honor the bill because the water was salt. Losing the suit which fol-
lowed, the contractor proceeded to make the best of a bad job by pull-
ing up the pipe of this artesian well for use elsewhere. This would
undoubtedly have saturated the drift of the region, and so have ren-
dered worthless all the wells in and around Beatrice, but this was
promptly averted by purchasing the pipe from the contractor. This
saline well was still flowing when last visited.
The Riverview Park artesian well in Omaha, 1,060 feet deep, passed
almost through the saline layer, but still is noticeably brackish.
At Lincoln a flowing well of very strong salt water was struck at a
depth of 560 feet (boring continued to 1,060 feet), and is now utilized
as a public fountain. At the Sulpho-saline Baths the water for the
great swimming tank rises and flows by its own pressure from wells
566 feet deep. This water is very salt. The F-street and the South-
street pumping stations yield water of such salinity as to cause wide-
spread and continued complaint from the parts of the city which are
supplied by these stations. Even the Rice pumping station, which
furnishes water of high repute, is said to be sufficiently saline at
times to cause comment, and a fear, which may not be wholly ground-
less, is entertained that the city water supply may grow more saline
from year to year until it will become a serious question from what
source to draw the supply. There has been increasing salinity in
the case of two pumping stations, and their abandonment seems to
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SIJPPI Y PAPER NO. 29 PL. XXVII

BURLINGTON BEACH, NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.

Illustrating the utilization of the saline water of the salt basin.
BAHBOUR.] SALT WATER. 77

be but a matter of time. With but three exceptions, the salt wells are
confined to those counties of southeastern Nebraska which belong to
the Carboniferous.
With the failure of the salt works, due to the discovery of salt in
Kansas, the salt marshes went into disuse, and stood as waste public
land. Recently they have been leased from the State by an enterpris-
ing company and by damming up one side of the salt basin the water is
set back about 1| miles, making a salt lake. Pavilions, bath houses,
and restaurants have been built, a small steamer and numerous sail
and row boats have been added, and the whole bears the rather pre-
tentious name of Burlington Beach (see PI. XXVII). For inland
people this becomes a pleasure and health resort of importance, and
the enterprise promises to be increasingly useful and remunerative.
So far as can be learned the first recognition of the hygienic pos-
sibilities of the saline water and its first utilization was by a former
hotel proprietor in Lincoln, who 1s reported to have earned a con-
siderable fortune, due largely to the salt baths which his hotel fur-
nished. These salt baths were deservedly popular and enjoyed a local
reputation, especially among those afflicted by rheumatism. At the
present time their place is taken by the sanitarium of Doctors M. H.
and J. O. Everett, called the Sulpho-saline Baths. This is an expen-
sive and important institution, fitted with a great plunge and swim-
ming tank 50 by 140 feet, and 4 to 10 feet deep, with baths and appli-
ances of every description, representing an investment of $100,000.
Two artesian salt wells, one 566 feet and the other 450 feet deep, fill the
great tank, the water passing first through a heated coil and thence
into the tank by its own pressure. This is the most important use ta
which salt wells in Nebraska have yet been put. In several cases the
waters of salt wells are bottled and sold, thus presenting a commercial
aspect. The salt well, known as the Lloyd Mineral Well, at Union,
Nebraska, is one of the best known in this connection. Its depth is
500 feet and the water is raised by a gasoline engine. Another eco-
nomic feature is the proposed use of this water in certain manufacturing
processes.
Several firms have already visited the region and speak favorably
of locating in southeastern Nebraska, where salt wells can be obtained
in connection with good shipping facilities. On the Government
square in Lincoln the salt water fed from a 1,060-foot artesian well is
used to supply the public fountain. This water is carried away in
bottles and pails because of real or imaginary curative properties,
which almost any mineral water is reputed to have. The slightly
saline water of the Riverview Park well at Omaha is put to a similar,
though much larger use, because of the greater volume of water sup-
plied. It supplies a public fountain in the park, from which a lively
little cascade falls into a lake. The economic importance of this one
well to the city of Omaha may be better judged when it is learned
78 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBEASKA. [NO. 29.

that an equal amount of water supplied by the water company at

the lowest possible wholesale water rate would cost the city $5,000
annually.
A rather novel if not unique method of irrigating by means of salt
water is in vogue with market gardeners along Salt Creek. The
water of this creek being too saline for direct application to the land,
it is used to turn paddle wheels, which at sight might be mistaken for
current wheels. Here is an example of the utilization of salt water in
running undershot wheels and pumping fresh water for irrigation.
BLOWING WELLS.
One rather phenomenal class of wells found throughout a large por-
tion of the State, especially south of Platte River, deserves particular
notice, and is worthy of the critical and long-continued study which
it is hoped it may yet receive. These wells are known by various
names, "blowing," "roaring," "breathing," "singing,"or "weather"
wells, according to the widely separated communities in which they
occur. It goes without saying that these wells are held in doubt else-
where, but the fact of their existence is established beyond all ques-
tion. In some communities, noticeably those of Jefferson County, all
such wells are readily distinguished at a distance because of the
mound of earth heaped up around the curbing and pump to check
the wind. Frequently they are banked up with snow instead, and
this soon becomes melted and riddled by numerous blowholes.
The attention of the author was first called to this matter by the
numerous inquiries sent to his office for explanation of and the rem-
edy for the freezing of well-protected pipes in wells at the apparently
impossible depth of 30, 50, 60, 80, and even 120 feet below the surface.
In every instance these were reported as roaring wells. There can be
no possible doubt about the freezing of these pipes and but little
doubt as to the cause.
Reports have come in from about twenty counties, distributed
pretty evenly over the State, chiefly south of "the Platte. The infor-
mation is derived from landowners, farmers, well diggers, ministers,
principals of schools, civil engineers, and students whose fathers own
such wells, the only difference in the reports being that which arises
from difference of observation. These accounts agree with personal
observations. There are periods when these wells blow out for con-
secutive days and an equal period when they are reversed. This is
tested with the flames of candles and by dropping paper, chaff, feath-
ers, etc., into the casing to see it blown out with some force or
drawn in. It is further stated that blowing often indicates high or
low conditions of barometer, and that some wells blow most audibly
when the wind is from the northwest, whereupon water rises to a
higher level in the well than before; but when the conditions are
reversed the air is drawn in, and in most reported wells the water is
HARBOUR.] BLOWING WELLS. 79

lowered. Many observers notice a reverse of the current- according

as it is morning or evening, and according as the temperature is high
or low. During the progress of a low-barometer area over one of these
regions the wind is expelled from blowing wells sometimes violently
and with a noise distinctly audible for several rods. Consequent to
the following of a high-barometer area the blowing becomes rapidly
less until the current is reversed, when the high-barometer area is
central over the region.
Steam or water vapor rises from the curbing, melting the frost or
snow for several inches around it. Beyond this the well may be
encircled by several feet of frost from the condensed vapor. Shortly
after the current is reversed the thawed circle freezes again. Water
vapor, 'coming from the stratum of invariable temperature, in winter
is warmer when expelled than is the outside air. This may explain
the fact that the pipes, if not too badly frozen, are often thawed out
when the well blows. It is said that commonly inhalation (which
carries the surface temperature to the bottom of the well, thus freez-
ing the pipes), precedes the phenomenon of exhalation (which carries
vapor at the average temperature of about 56°, and sometimes thaws
the frozen pipes).
Experience has taught the people that the blowing of their wells is
premonitory of an approaching storm; hence the name "weather"
wells. This is an entirely reasonable and correct observation, for the
falling barometer signifies a change of weather. The blowing means
a low-barometer area, the sucking a high-barometer area. It is inter-
esting, in this connection, to notice that the periods of most pro-
nounced or unusual exhalation or inhalation are coincident, respec-
tively, with periods of exceptionally low and exceptionally high barom-
eter areas. The author has sent blanks to owners of blowing wells,
requesting them to report the days and hours when their wells begin
to blow, when the blowing is at its maximum, when the current is
reversed, and when the indraft is at its maximum. After observations
covering two or three months have been received comparison will be
made with the barometric chart.
Professors Loveland and Swezey, of the Signal Service Station of the
University'of Nebraska, have made observations on such a well in
Perkins County, the owners recording the hour when the blowing or
sucking began. These, when compared with the records of the barom-
eter, were exactly coincident. The citizens have elaborated many
explanations, some of them as interesting as ingenious. Some reason
that the blowing is plainly due to the liberation of natural gas; that
natural gas is from petroleum; that petroleum is the natural distilla-
tion from great coal fields, and staking their fortune on this original
reasoning have spent no small sum, besides valuable time, in pros-
pecting for coal. A few, noticing a change of current every twelve
hours that is, morning and evening think the blowing wells are due
80 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO. 29.

to tidal action of the sheet water, considering the sheet water as a

great subterranean lake. They should recall that the effects of tides
on the Great Lakes themselves is scarcely appreciable; what then
could it be in the sheet water?
The phenomenon is most generally attributed to atmospheric pres-
sure, which is probably the true but not necessarily the sole cause.
The study of a representative section of wells in southeastern Nebraska
is important and suggestive. Below 50 to 100 feet of soil and subsoil is
a layer of dense, though thin, limestone about 4 inches in thickness.
When this covering to the water-bearing gravel below is penetrated,
water, under slight pressure, rises about 1 foot. The water-bearing
layer is very porous and water is delivered through it readily. ^ More
or less air must always be inclosed in such, and especially between
it and the roofing layer over the loose material.
It is plain that the air above and the air inclosed in the rock and
gravel below are alike subject to the fluctuation of the barometer. If
the surface air is rendered less dense by a low barometer, the air below
will pass out by an opening, natural or artificial, until equilibrium
between the rarer and the denser air is established, when they remain
stationary. The reverse effect follows a high-barometer area. The
author can not believe that this would account for the force displayed
in the expulsion of air. Instead, the energy displayed seems due to
the air forced out by the rising of the water below. Any force, baro-
metric or otherwise, which would raise the water level in this layer
would displace a certain amount of air. On the other hand, a lower-
ing of the water table would admit a certain amount of air, but free-
dom of egress and ingress is retarded by the roofing layer of limestone,
which is perforated here and there by an occasional well, and from
such openings the air is expelled or drawn in. Confine this over a
wide area, and it is apparent that a slight rise in water level would
expel air from a well for several consecutive hours or even days.
There is probably such close hydrostatic connection in the sheet
water of the State that it is everywhere sensitive to differences of
atmospheric pressure, and the difference is made sensible in certain
localities by blowing or sucking wells. Awaiting the time when
continued study shall have made exact explanation of this phenom-
enon possible, it is safe to attribute it to atmospheric pressure; but
this is not the sole cause. The immediate effect is not so much the
result of any one cause as of several. The observation is often
repeated that wells blow and water rises appreciably when the wind
is from the northwest. The wind is not so directly the cause as are
the areas of low and high barometer, which travel ordinarily in this
direction accompanied by more or less wind. The wind may, how-
ever, be the immediate cause in some cases, especially in those wells
adjacent to Platte River, and an indirect cause in others. At times,
when a strong wind from the northwest prevails for hours, its impact
-BARBOUR.] BLOWING WELLS. 81

against the river water that is, the friction of the wind is sufficient
to drive the shallow water of Platte River across its bed, leaving the
irrigation ditches, the sand bars, and the interlacing channels on the
north side dry, while those on the south side are flooded. That is, the
waters are piled up here, as it were, and equilibrium is disturbed.
To that extent there must be readjustment. This is rendered sen-
sible in the immediate vicinity by water rising in wells, at a distance
by a wave of transmitted energy, which can but affect to a certain
extent every portion of the underflow of the Platte. This may show
itself in an appreciable rise of water and consequent displacement of
air from porous strata, and an appreciable rise over a wide area might
expel a large volume of air. Tests show that it is air, not gas, that
is expelled. While exact records have been kept respecting blowing
wells as far west as Perkins County, those farther east in Jefferson
County, probably the most numerous and best known in the State,
have received no critical study as yet.
Mr. Cassius A. Fisher, assistant in the department of geology, was
sent to visit this region December 16, 1896, just as a low-barometer
area was central over this spot, and the blowing in all the wells of the
neighborhood was most pronounced. This continued in a diminishing
ratio during the night and until noon the following day. Then the
current was slowly reversed consequent to an approaching high-
pressure area. Mr. J. M. Rohrbaugh, a student in the department,
reports a blowing well on the farm of his father, Mr. C. W. Rohrbaugh,
as follows: The well is situated 4 miles southeast of Jansen, in Jeffer-
son County, sec. 1, T. 2, R. 3 east of the sixth principal meridian.
The well was bored to a depth of 130 feet; depth of water 120 feet.
It blows out before storms, especially when the wind is from the north-
west. It has frozen repeatedly to a depth of 120 feet, that is, to the
water level. Water froze in the pipes down to this depth three times
in one week during the winter of 1895, and the pipe had to be removed
and thawed out each time. There are two such wells, one of which
has been abandoned, and over the top of the casing has been fitted a
keg with a hole so bored that it whistles when the current blows out.
The well sucks in air during cold weather, and then it is that pipes
freeze at unusual depths.
They are of such common occurrence in Jefferson County that little
is thought of the phenomenon. Mr. Rohrbaugh has furnished the
author with a map showing the blowing wells near Jansen. Mr. Cassius
A. Fisher reports such a well, known to him from his childhood, on
the farm of his father, Mr. M. C. Fisher, six miles east of Fremont,
in Saunders County. The well was 60 feet deep, and on a hillside.
They called it the "singing " well, because the sound exactly resembled
the singing or simmering of a teakettle. The blowing often continued
for three consecutive days; at the end of that time water stood several
feet higher in the well, as they could tell by lowering the well bucket.
29 6
82 WELLS AND WINDMILLS IN NEBRASKA. [NO.29.

The "breathing" well of Joseph Henggler, of Columbus, Platte

County, represents very nicely this type of wells. It has been reported
in person by the owner and by at least six to eight different neighbors.
They have long been familiar with the fact that the air was drawn in
during certain seasons and blown out during others, and with the dif-
ficulty from the freezing of the pipes; the water escape has been low-
ered from 10 feet, where it was first placed, to 20 feet, then to 40, and
finally to 50 feet, which was about on the water level, the well being
60 feet deep. The pipe was frozen at the depth of 50 feet. Mr. Heng-
gler has kept a thermometer by his well, and has been able to make
pretty close observations. " When the temperature stands at 32° a
rise of 1° will cause a current to blow out and a fall of 1° to blow in."
Finding that the well was freezing, he undertook to stop the ingoing
current by banking up the well curbing with manure and straw from
the barn. This was soon blown away. Then straw with a layer of
earth was placed over the curbing. Finally the "imprisoned wind"
blew around the curbing to such an extent that it hollowed out a con-
siderable, basin. After several years the well was abandoned and a
second well dug, which has caused the owner, according to his account,
almost as much trouble. In Franklin County exactly similar wells
are reported. An assistant has visited and reported a well near
Macon which has frozen in winter to a depth of 80 feet, because of the
indraft of cold air. He also reports of the same well that when the
wind is from, the northwest the water is raised about 18 inches, and
when in the opposite direction the water is lowered about 18 inches.
In Phelps County, 3 miles north of Phelps Center, there are blow-
ing wells in which the current of air is out or in, according as the
wind is from the north and northwest or from the south and south-
east. Mr. J. F. O'Brien, engineer of the irrigation canal at Kearney,
has seen these wells, and has told the author personally of them and
of blowing wells found in Lincoln County. According to his account
he has seen numerous wells of this type, and they are usually found
in loose sand and gravel south of the Platte.
 INDEX.

Page. Page.
Adams County, well in..................... 20 Cozad, plate showing windmill at . . 38
Ainsworth, well near ...................... 20 windmill at ................... . 39
windmills at........................ 41,59-60 [Link] ..................... . 20
Alma, experiment station at............... 25 Crawford, well at ................ . 21
Artesian water, nature of.................. 18-24 Crete, water elevator near. ....... . 69
Artesian wells in Nebraska, list of......... 20-23 Cuming County, well in..........- . 21
Artois, France, wells in .................... 18 Current wheels, features of ....... . 69
Ashland, plate showing windmill near..... 52, 60 Curtis, experiment station at . 25
windmills near...................... 53-54, 65 Cushman County, plate showing windwill
Baldwin, W. F., windmill of................ 59-60 in.................................. 38
Battle-ax windmills, features of............ 47-54 Dairying, use of windmill in ............ 29-30, 31
figures showing construction of........ 40, Dakota sandstone, artesian wells in ....... 19
49, 50, 51, 52 Dawes County, wells in .................... 21
Beatrice, wells at .......................... 19, 21 Deep plowing, advantages of ............... 26
Beaver Crossing, plate showing wells at... 24 Dixon County, wells in. .................... 21
wells at................................ 19 Dodge County, well in ..................... 21
Benkelman, water elevator near ........... 68 Douglas County, wells in .................. 20
Berwin, figure showing windmill at ....... 44 Dust-blanket farming, method of ........... 26
Bethany, plates showing windmills near... 36 Dutch windmills, features of ............... 54-56
windmill near.......................... 37,39 Elk Creek, well near............. .......... 21
Bird City, Kans., experiment station at.... 25 Elkhorn, well in ........................... 20
Blackman, E. E., windmill of............... 45-46 Endless chain, use of ................. 44, 66, 67-68
Blowing wells,features of.................. 78-82 Erina, well at .............................. 21
Boardman's windmill...................... 38-39 Ernstmeyer, Friedrich, windmill of ........ 57
Boersen,Henry, windmill of ............... 62-63 Fairmont, plate showing waterworks at ... 62
Boiling springs,nature of.................. 24 Fisher, C. A., work of...... ................ 81
Bonstedt, Ferdinand, cited ................. 75 Fisher, M.C., well of ....................... 81
Bormann, Henry, windmill of.............. 55-56 Franklin County, blowing well in .......... 82
Boyd County, wells in ..................... 20 Fremont, blowing well near ................ 81
Brokenbow, experiment station at......... 25 Fullerton, vs ell near ........................ 22
Breathing wells, features of................ 78-82 , Gage County, well in ....................... 21
Brock, well near ........................... 22 Gandy, wellat....- .......................... 22
Brown County, well in ..................... 20 Garfield County, wells in .................. 21
Brown, J. L., windmill of................... 37-38 Geiss, Jacob, windmill of ................... 48
Burchard, well near........................ 22 Gering, well at ............................. 23
Burlington Beach, plate showing .......... 76 Go-devil windmills, features of............ 35-44
salt wells at............................ 77 Goodrich, W. "W., windmill of .............. 37, 39
Burt County, wells in ...................... 20 Gothenburg, plate showing windmill near . 52
Campbell, H. W., deep plowing by ......... 26 windmill near. ...................... 51-53, 56
Capillary action of water .................. 16 Grand Island, plates showing windmills
Carboniferous formation, wells in.......... 19 near.......................... 48,50,56,58
Cass County, well in .......... ............ 21 windmills at and near. . . 45, 47-48, 50, 57, 62-64
Cattle raising, methods of.................. 26 Grant, experiment station at ............... 25
Cedar County, wells in..................... 21 Grant County, well in...................... 21
Chalco, plate showing windmill near-...... 54 Greeley Center, windmill at. ............... 45
windmill near.......................... 54-55 Ground water, action of .................... 14-28
Cherry County, wells in.................... 21 Harders, John, windmill of. ................ 50
Cheyenne County, well in .................. 21 Hat Creek, current wheel on branch of. .... 69
Close farming, results of................... 25-26 plate showing current wheel on branch
Columbus, blowing well at................. 82 b of.................................. 68
windmill at ............................ 41 Hastings, experiment station at ............ 25
Cook, wells at and near.................. 19, 21, 22 water supply of ........... ...A ......... 74-75
84 INDEX.

Page. Page.
Hastings, well near ..................... 20 Madrid, well near .......................... 22
Havelock, windmill in.................. 37 Mathieseii, Fred, windmill of............... 57
Henggler, Joseph, well of............... 82 McComb, W.F., windmill of................ 64
Herman, wells at....................... 23 McCook, experiment station at............. 25
Hicks, L. E., cited ...................... 73 well at................................. 23
Holdrege, experiment station at ........ 25 McPherson County, wells in................ 22
Holland windmills, features of............. 54-56 Merry-go-round windmills, construction of. 46-47
Holt County, plate showing well in........ 38 features of............................. 44-46
wells in................................ 19, ai figures showing construction of........ 45,46
Homemade -wind-wills, cost of.............. 34 Milford, plate showing dam at ............. 28
description of.......................... 35-64 plate showing windmill near........... 66
distribution of......................... 35,36 windmill at ............................ 66
types of................................ 34-35 Moisture, conservation of.................. 24-26
use of.................................. 31-34 Moulton Ice Company, windmill of......... 66
Hood,O.P., cited........................... 36 Mound Springs,nature of.................. 24
Hooker County, well in.................... 21 Mullen, well at............................. 21
Hooper, well near ........................... 21 Nance County, wellin...................... 22
Hot Springs, S. Dak., current wheel at..... 69 Nebraska,rainfall in....................... 45
plate showing current wheel near.... -. 68 Nemaha County, well in.................... 22
Huennecke, Diedtrich, windwill of......... 50-51 Newell, F. H., letter of transmittal by...... 11-12
Hunter, David, current wheel of ........... 69 Newport, windmill at...................... 64
Hyannis, well at........................... 21 Norfolk, well near.......................... 22
Hygroscopic water, action of .............. 16 North Platte, distribution of rainfall at.... 72
Her, W.W., windwill of.................... 37 figure showing tympanum at .......... 67
Intensive cultivation, effects of ............ 25-26 windmillat ............................ 66-67
Irrigation, use of artesian wells in......... 23-24 Oberlin, Kans., experiment station at ...... 25
use of water lifter in................... 68 O'Brien, J.F., cited ........................ 82
use of windmills in .............. 29-31,39-40 Ogallala, plate showing windmill at........ 60
water available for..................... 73 windmills at ........................... 64-65
James, "William, water elevator of.......... 69 Olson, M. J., windmill of.................... 39
Janak Bros., windmill of................... 57-59 Omaha, distribution of rainfall at.......... 72
Jansen,blowing well near.................. 81 plate showing well at.................. 18
Jasperson, Elmer, windmill of........... 53-54, 65 salt well at............................. 76,77
Jefferson County, Wowing wells in......... 78,81 water supply of........................ 74
Joehnck, Henry, windmill of............... 45 wells -at and near.................... 19, 20, 23
Johnson County, artesian wells in ......... 18 Ord, well near.............................. 23
wells in............................. 19,21-22 OtoeCounty, wells in ...................... 22,23
Jumbo windmills, construction of.......... 42, 44 Overton, plates showing windmills near ... 48, 58
features of ............................. 35,42 windmill at and near....... 38-39,49-50, 60-62
plates and figure showing construc- Oxford, experiment station at.............. 25
tion of............................. 40,42 Paddle wheels, features of................. 35-44
Karr, J. W., water elevator of.............. 68 Palmyra, well at........................... 23
Kearney, plan of waterworks at............ 74 Pardee, Lewis, windmill of................. 64
plate showing waterworks at.----..... 74 Pawnee, well near.......................... 22
plate showing windmill at.............. 36 Pawnee County, wells in ................... 22
water supply of........................ 74 Peckham, E. L., windmill of................ 51-53
windmills near...................... 37-38, 65 Peckham, J. S., windmill of ................ 51-53
Kettle Springs, nature of .................. 24 Per kins County, blowing well in........... 79
Kirkwood, wells near ...................... ' 24 wellin ................................. 22
Knox County, well in ...................... 22 Phelps County, blowing wells in........... 82
Lancaster County, wells in................. 20 Pilger, well near ........................... 23
Lincoln, plates and figure showing wind- Platte County, blowing well in............. 82
mills near-................ 38,40,44, 46, 64 wellin ................................. 22
salt wells at............................ 76-77 Platte River, irrigation from ............... 27-28
water supply of........................ 74-75 plate showing.......................... 28
wells at and near ...................... 19,20 Platte Valley, windmills in........... 35,47-50,55
windmills at and near............ 40-41,46,66 Pollution of water ......................... 26-27
Lincoln County, blowing wells in .......... 82 Polk County, well in ....................... 22
well in................................. 22 Ponca, wells near........................... 21
Lena, well at............................... 22 Portal, plate showing windmill near ....... 54
Logan County, well in...................... 22 windmill near.......................... 55-56
Loup County, well in ...................... 22 Precipitation in Nebraska, amount of ...... 71-72
Loup River Valley, windmills in ........... 35 figure showing......................... 73
Loveland, G. A., and Swezey.G. D., cited. 71, 72, 79 Prinz, August, windmill of................. 54-55
Macon, blowing well near .................. 82 Pumps, disadvantages of .................. 44
Madison County, well in ................... 22 Putney, S. Dak., deep plowing at........... 26
 INDEX. 85

Page.
Rainfall in Nebraska, amount of ........... 71-72 Turbine windmills, features of............. 47
Red willow County, well in ................. 23 figures showing construction of. 58, 59,60, 61,
Republican Valley, windmills in ........... 35 62,63
Roaring wells, features of.................. 78-82 kinds of.........-.........-..--.-....-- 47
Rock County, wells in................... 19^23, 24 reconstruction of....................... 64-65
Rohrbaugh, C. W., well of.................. 81 uses for ................................ 66-67
St. Francis, Kans., experiment station at... 25 Tympanum water wheel, figure showing... 67
Sarpy County, well in...................... 23 novel uses of....................... - - - 66-67
Sarpy Mills, windmill at............r ...... 57-58 Unadilla, well near ......................... 22
Salt Creek, salt marsh on .................. 75-76 Underground water,action of.............. 14-28
Salt wells, location of ...................... 75-78 Union, mineral well at..................... 77
Saunders County, blowing well in.......... 81 University of Nebraska, plate showing
ScottsBluff County,wellin................ 23 windmill at........................ 30
Screw jumbo windmills, features of........ 41-42 Valley County, well in ..................... 23
Seepage water, utilization of............ 27-28, 46 Videtto, S. S. .windmill of.................. 46
Seward County, artesian wells in .......... 18 Warner, J. M., windmill of................. 60-62
well in.--.......-..-..-....-.-......... 23 Washington County, wells in .............. 23
Sheep raising, importance of............... 32 Water, height of........................... 28
Sheet water, nature of...................... 17-18 Water lifters, forms of.................. 29, 67-69
Sidney, well near........................... 21 Water supply for towns ................... 73-75
Soil of Nebraska, character of....... '....... 16-17 Water table, height of...................... 14-15
Stanton County, well in.................... 23 Weather wells, features of................. 78-82
Steinauer, well at.......................... 22 Weeping Water, well at................... 21
Storage of power, methods of............... 69-71 Wheeler, Kans., experiment station at..... 25
Stout, O. V. P., cited.................... ... 73 Wheeler County, well in ................... 23
Stromsburg, well at........................ 22 WMtney, Milton, analyties by -.------------ 16
Sutherland, current wheel near ............ 69 Wilson, Matthew, windmills of ............ 49-50
well near............................... 22 Windlasses, use of......................... 29
Swezey, G. D., andLoveland, G. A., cited- 71-72,79 Windmills, reconstruction of............... 64-65
Tannehill, John, windmill of ............... 41 uses of........................... 29-81,65-67
Taylor, well at............................. 22 See Homemade windmills.
Tekamah, well in .......................... 20 Winn, William A.. windmill of............. 45
Town water supply, use of windmill for. -.. 65-66 Wisner, well at............................. 21
Transmission of power, figure showing Woodlake, well at.......................... 21
method of.......................... 70 Woulf, Fred, windmill of................... 50
methods of............................. 69-71 York, wells at.............................. 23
Travis Bros., windmills of ................. 40-41 York County, wells in...................... 23
Trenton, windmill at....................... 41
Sixteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1894-95, Part II,
Papers of <m economic character, 1895; octavo, 598 pp.
Contains a paper on the public lauds and their water supply, by P. H. Newell, illustrated
by a large map showing the relative extent and location of the vacant public lauds; also a
report on the water resources of a portion of the Great Plains, by Robert Hay.
A geological reconnoissance of northwestern Wyoming, by George H. Eldridge,
1894; octavo, 73 pp. Bulletin No. 119 of the United States Geological Survey;
price, 10 cents.
Contains a description of the geologic structure of portions-of the Bighorn Eauge-aud
Bighorn Basin, especially with inference to the coal fields, and remarks upon the water
supply aud agricultural possibilities.
Report of progress of the division of hydrography for the calendar years 1893 and
1894, by F. H. Newell, 1895; octavo, 176 pp. BtTlletin No. 131 of the United
States Geological Survey: price. 15 cents.
Contains results of stream measurements at various points, mainly within the arid region,
and records of wells in a number of counties in western Nebraska, western Kansas, and
eastern Colorado.
1896.
Seventeenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1895-96, Part
II, Economic geology and hydrography, 189G; octavo, 864 pp.
Contains papers on "The underground water of the Arkansas Valley in eastern Colo-
rado," by Q-. K. Gilbert; " The water resources of Illinois," by Frank Leverett; and "Pre-
liminary report on the artesian areas of a portion of the Dakotas," by N. H. Darton.
Artesian-well prospects in the Atlantic Coastal Plain region, by N. H. Darton.
1896; octavo, 330 pp., 19 plates. Bulletin No. 138 of the United States Geolog:
ical Survey: price, 20 cents.
Gives a description of the geologic conditions of the coastal region from Long Island,
N. Y., to Georgia, and contains data relating to many of the deep wells.
Report of progress of the division of hydrography for the calendar year 1895, by
F. H. Newell, hydrographer in charge, 1896; octavo, 356 pp. Bulletin No. 140
of the United States Geological Survey: price, 35 cents.
Contains a description of the instruments and methods employed in measuring streams
and the results of hydrographic investigations in various parts of the United States.
1897.
Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1896-97, Part
IV, Hydrography, 1897; octavo, 756 pp.
Contains a ''Report of progress of stream measurements for the year 1896," by Arthur
P. Davis; "The water resources of Indiana and Ohio," by Frank Leverett; "New devel-
opments in well boring and irrigation in South Dakota," by N. H. Darton: and "Reser-
voirs for irrigation," by J. D. Schuyler
I SOS.
Nineteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1897-98, Part
IV, Hydrography, 1899; octavo, 814 pp.
Contains a "Report of progress of stream measurements for the calendar year!8!>7."
by F. H. Newell and others; "The rock waters of Ohio," by Edward Orton: and "Pre-
liminary report on the geology and water resources of Nebraska west of the one hundred
and third meridian," by N. H. Darton.

WATER-SUPPLY AND IRRIGATION PAPERS, 1896-1899.

This series of papers is designed to present in pamphlet form the results of stream meas-
urements and of special investigations. A list of these, with other information, is given on
ths outside (or fourth) page of this cover.
Survey bulletins can be obtained only by prepayment of cost, as noted above.
Postage stamps, checks, and drafts can not be accepted. Money should be trans-
mitted by postal money order or express order, made payable to the Director of
the United States Geological Survey. Correspondence relating to the publications
of the Survey should be addressed to The Director, United States Geological
Survey, Washington, D. C.
IRR 29
 WATER-SUPPLY AND IRRIGATION PAPERS.
1. Pumping water for irrigation, by Herbert M. Wilson, 1896.
2. Irrigation near Phoenix, Arizona, by Arthur P. Davis, 1897.
3. Sewage irrigation, by George W. Rafter, 1897.
4. A reconnoissance in southeastern Washington, by Israel C. Russell, 1897.
5. Irrigation practice on the Great Plains, by E. B. Cowgill, 1897.
6. Underground waters of southwestern Kansas, by Erasmus Haworth, 1897.
7. Seepage waters of northern Utah, by Samuel Fortier, 1897.
8. Windmills for irrigation, by E. C. Murphy, 1897.
9. Irrigation near Greeley, Colorado, by David Boyd, 1897.
10. Irrigation in Mesilla Valley, New Mexico, by F. C. Barker, 1898.
11. Paver heights for 1896, by Arthur P. Davis, 1897.
12. Water resources of southeastern Nebraska, by Nelson Horatio Darton, 1898.
13. Irrigation systems in Texas, by William Ferguson Hutson, 1898.
14. New tests of pumps and water lifts used in irrigation, by O. P. Hood, 1898.
15. Operations at river stations, 1897, Part I. 1898.
16. Operations at river stations, 1897, Part II, 1838.
17. Irrigation near Bakersfield, California, by C. E. Grunsky, 1898.
18. Irrigation near Fresno, California, by C. E. Grunsky, 1898.
19. Irrigation near Merced, California, by C. E. Grunsky, 1899.
20. Experiments with windmills, by Thomas O. Perry, 1899.
21. Wells of northern Indiana, by Frank Leverett, 1899.
22. Sewage irrigation, Part II, by George W. Rafter, 1899.
23. Water-right problems in the Bighorn Mountains, by Elwood Mead, 1899.
24. Water resources of the State of New York, Part I, by George W. Rafter, 1899.
25. Water resources of the State of New York, Part II, by George W. Rafter, 1899.
26. Wolls of southern Indiana, by Frank Leverett, 1899.
27. Operations at river stations, 1898, Part I, 1899.
28. Operations at river stations, 1898, Part II, 1899.
29. Wells and windmills in Nebraska, by Erwin Hinckley Barbour, 1899.
In addition to the above, there are in various stages of preparation other papers
relating to the measurement of streams, the storage of water, the amount available
from underground sources, the efficiency of windmills, the cost of pumping, and
other details relating to the methods of utilizing the water resources of the coun-
try. Provision has been made for printing these by the following clause in the
sundry civil act making appropriations for the year 1896-97:
Provided, That hereafter the reports of the Geological Survey in relation to the
gauging of streams and to the methods of utilizing the water resources may be
printed in octavo form, not to exceed 100 pages in length and 5.000 copies in num-
ber; 1,000 copies of which shall be for the official use of the Geological Survey,
1,500 copies shall be delivered to the Senate, and 2,500 conies shall be delivered to
the House of Representatives, for distribution. [Approved June 11,1896; Stat. L.,
vol. 29, p. 453.]
The maximum number of copies available for the use of the Geological Survey
is 1,000. This number falls far short of the demand, so that it is impossible to
meets all requests. Attempts are made to send these pamphlets to persons who
have rendered assistance in their preparation through replies to schedules or
donation of data. Requests specifying a certain paper and stating a reason for
desiring it are granted whenever practicable, but it is impossible to comply with
general requests, such as to have all of the series sent indiscriminately.
Application for the? 3 papers should be made either to members of Congress or to
THE DIRECTOR,
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,
Washington, D. C.
IRR 29