When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water. ~ Benjamin Franklin
According to the EPA, about 43 million people have private wells on their property. I didn’t expect to see a number that large, but it’s probably because my head is stuck in the 60s and the type of well my grandmother used to have. Periodically, her well would run dry, and someone would have to dig a new one in a different location on the homeplace. The new wells are as invisible as buried gas lines or septic tanks. And I’m confident the process to dig a well is nothing like it was 200 years ago. How did they do that back then? And how did they know where to find water?
Water well construction from 8000 years ago
Talk about manual labor! Hydrologica tells us that in India, people used their hands to dig wells. How did they manage without modern-day tools? The answer is: effectively, especially considering their tools. They built stone steps as they deepened the hole and they were able to walk down to the groundwater.* The Chinese also hand-dug wells, but lined their digs with logs and built square casings at the top. Those structures would have looked somewhat like the image above.
Bear in mind that there was no local Ace Hardware Store for last-minute implement needs. People had to make their tools, and they would have been rudimentary. That is, tools consisted of polished stone and sharpened animal bones, and the craftsmen didn’t have safety glasses and work gloves to use as they honed the edges. You know, per OSHA.
*Groundwater is found beneath the earth’s surface; surface water comes from rivers and lakes. The latter is more likely to be contaminated.
Locating the aquifer or groundwater
According to Anco Environmental, there are currently 7 ways to locate water on your property, including remote sensing and geophysical surveys. Sadly, ancient people had no access to any of those methods, and no way to google those ideas, anyway. How did they find water? That answer is going to be speculation with a touch of AI. As you can imagine, I prefer to have specific sources, but I found none. That said, the suggestions AI made were reasonable. Hundreds of years ago, humans:
- Observed animals. They are much more in tune with nature than most humans, and they also require water for survival.
- Remained alert to the presence of fresh water springs.
- Checked out areas where plants were growing profusely.
One omission in that list is dowsing, which I addressed in a post called “Useful Search Tool?“. Its capabilities are embraced by some and scorned by others. In any case, in most regions of the world, finding water is a matter of digging til you find it. It is there.
- 97% of the earth’s water is salt water, and 2% is frozen. Only 1% is available for drinking.
- Humans are made up of about 60% water.
- A gallon of ocean water contains about 1/3 cup salt.
- The salt level isn’t consistent across bodies of water. The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific.
- Comets are mostly ice, and some of the water on our planet may have arrived by airmail.
Absent a well, how does your faucet function?
These days, over 300 million people in the U.S. enjoy public water. Where do these public water systems source their water? Pretty much everywhere. The water coming out of your tap is a mixture of surface, ground, and natural springs, according to the CDC. But didn’t I just say that surface water is more susceptible to contamination? Yes, I did. But municipalities and other public water suppliers are subject to stringent quality controls, and they treat the water to meet standards set by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. How do they manage that? Carefully. I won’t be going into detail here. You can check it out at the Nuwater site if you have a burning need to get into the nitty-gritty. I do not have sufficient intellectual curiosity for a deep dive–not with that topic.
Despite the title, this is not an unplumbed subject (sorry, couldn’t help myself), but I found it useful. Once again, I am reminded of how very much I take for granted. A greater lesson, though, shouldn’t have needed a reminder. As we enjoy the fruits of technological advancements, we would be well-served to understand some of the developmental steps necessary to access water. After all, one day we may want to take a walk in the woods, and we may not take enough Dasani to quench our thirst, much less to clean a wound. Is that likely? Perhaps not, but all of us could use knowledge that supports basic survival. And it doesn’t get any more basic than water.
I do not remember our paternal grandparents having a well, though at some point they likely did. Grandmother Perry lived in her little 2 acre place in the country until she was in her early 80s. She never had running water and relied on a hand dug well that had rope wrapped around a spindle arrangement with a crank handle to wind it up. The water was collected inside a tube with a flap valve on one end which was lowered by the rope into the well about 30-40 feet down.
When mother would take me out to see grandma, my first job was to bring water in and to bring coal in for cooking or to warm the house.
I do remember dad and uncle Joye hand digging a new well when the old one went dry. I recall dad commenting on how much Joye was sweating given he had sales type jobs and was unaccustomed to manual labor.
When visiting relatives who lived in “the hills”, we would retrieve water from the clear and fast running streams.
Like Franklin said, you think little of it until you do not have it.
My first memories of the Gibson grandparents were on S 18th, and they had city water. I remember Grandma Perry’s coal pile, but I don’t remember getting water out of the well–I just remember it being there. That, and the smokehouse in the back.
I have used the iron crank to loosen the rope that unwound slowly so as to not drop the attached bucket when it hit the water and stir up the sand meeting the bucket. At an early age we saw the importance of water. That made it a must to catch rain water Great article and a vivid curiosity to many
I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of the bucket muddying up the water. Different skills for different types of chores, and I don’t have the ones I would have needed then.