GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE

WILSON COUNTY
stitute the source of municipal water at Watertown, about 12 miles
southeast df Lebanon, are 250 and 251 feet deep and 6 inches in
diameter. Both tap a water-bearing bed in the Ridley (?) limestone
more than 200 feet below the surface and hence not more than 455
feet above sea level. The static level of the ground water is reported
as about 40 feet below the surface. Each well is equipped with an
electrically driven double-acting deep-well pump with a rated capacity
of 60 gallons a minute. When the wells were first placed in service,
in October, 1925, one was pumped at full capacity for 36 hours and
both were pumped concurrently at full capacity for 12 hours in order
to fill the 200,000-gallon municipal standpipe. Since that time they
have been pumped about four hours each day. The drawdown under
ordinary operating conditions is reported as 19 feet, which corresponds
to a specific capacity of 3 gallons a minute for each foot of drawdown.
It is perhaps noteworthy that the water-bearing beds in the munic­
ipal wells both at Lebanon and at Watertown occur in the Ridley
(?) limestone. Furthermore, at Lebanon the water-bearing bed is
about 50 feet below the level of the Cumberland River, whereas at
Watertown it is about 50 feet above the level of the river. The static
level of the ground water at Lebanon is about 465 feet above sea
level and at Watertown about 625 feet above sea level, or about 65
and 225 feet, respectively, above the Cumberland River. Big Spring
(No. 329), which is about 7 miles northeast of Lebanon and whose
altitude is about 520 feet above sea level, discharges by artesian head
from the Hermitage formation or Lowville limestone. Also, the
static level of ground water in well 328, about 3% miles northwest of
Big Spring, is approximately level with the ground surface, or about
465 feet above sea level. This well finds water confined under artesian
head in the upper part of the Stones River group (pp. 54-57) about 118
feet below the surface (350 feet above sea level). These static levels
seem to define a pressure-indicating surface which is approximately a
true plane sloping northwestward about 13 feet in each mile and inter­
secting the water surface of the Cumberland River approximately
due north of Horn Springs. Such a hydraulic gradient is quite com­
patible with the assumption that the water-bearing beds at Lebanon,
Watertown, well 328, and Big Spring are connected by moderately
permeable material. Even on this assumption, however, the con­
ditions that maintain artesian head remain somewhat uncertain.
Clearly, the water-bearing beds do not constitute a stratigraphic
unit nor a channeled zone related to an unconformity, for they occur
at several stra%£apMe horizons. Furthermore, the relation be­
tween rainfall and static level of the ground water in the 185-foot
bed at Lebanon, together with the chemical character of the water
from both the Lebanon and Watertown municipal wells (see analyses
333 and 347, pp. 116-117), indicate that the water is of meteoric origin