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R.C. Cady

Publications and source records attributed to R.C. Cady.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2014

Investigations of the fluctuations of water‐levels in observation‐wells in Virginia

An automatic water ‐stage recorder has been maintained on an observation ‐ well in Arlington County, Virginia , about 1‐½ miles from the United States Weather Bureau, in Washington, D.C., since June, 1928, but there are a few interruptions in the record. This is a dug well , about 28 feet deep and extends through terrace deposits of gravelly silt or loam. It has not been used for water ‐supply during the period of record. The recorder was installed by the United States Geological Survey and the record has been given considerable study by O. E. Meinzer, W. N. White, and L. K. Wensel, all of the Geological Survey. In July, 1931, the study of this well was made a part of a more comprehensive investigation of the ground‐ water resources of Virginia in cooperation with the State Geological Survey, which was assigned to the writer. The well is essentially of the water ‐table type, and its hydrograph shows approximately the periods of rainfall‐penetration and the relative amounts of recharge in each of these periods. The record is especially instructive because of certain unusual climatic conditions that have existed in the last four years.

Virginia↗
USGS2014

The channel‐storage method of determining effluent seepage

Some years ago the senior author, in collaboration with Norah Dowell Stearns, undertook to make a monthly inventory of the water‐supply of the Pomperaug River Basin, in Connecticut, from a study of data obtained by A. J. Ellis from 1913 to 1916. For this purpose approximate determinations or estimates were made of the ground‐water runoff, that is, of the part of the daily discharge of the river that consisted of water derived from the zone of saturation by effluent seepage. The determinations or estimates were essentially based on the assumption that after a week of fair weather the storm‐water was all discharged and that until the next rain the runoff was essentially all ground‐water (U.S. Geol, Surv. Water‐Supply Paper 597, pp. 107–116 and pi. 19, 1929). In the discussion of the methods and results of this investigation, the following statement was made (Water‐Supply Paper 597, pp. 145–146): “In this investigation the estimates of ground‐water runoff were based on the discharge of the Pomperaug at Bennetts Bridge—that is, on the discharge during the periods between rains, when there was virtually no direct runoff left in the stream‐system. Much better results could be obtained by basing the estimates on periods beginning as soon after rains as all of the direct runoff has reached the streams. With this method the ground‐water runoff during any particular day would be the total runoff minus the decrease in stream‐storage. The decrease in stream‐storage could be estimated by maintaining gages at several points on the trunk‐stream and on selected tributaries and making surveys of the stream‐system showing the approximate water‐areas of different parts of the system at different gage‐heights.”

Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union↗
USGS2014

Ground‐water recharge in areas of deep water‐table in the Great Plains

It is unanimously agreed, I think, that of the water which falls upon the Earth's surface, a part runs off toward the sea, a part is at least temporarily detained, a part of it evaporates, and a part sinks beneath the ground‐surface. But among students of that water which sinks beneath the Earth's surface, complete agreement as to the course it then takes has not always prevailed. Ground‐water hydrologists have assumed that water can and does reach the water‐table by descending through a great thickness of subsoil in the semi‐arid upland divides of the Great Plains. But many students of soil‐moisture and its use by vegetation in the Great Plains have concluded from their soil‐moisture sampling that water does not descend to the water‐table where the depth to the water‐table is great. Thus Cole and Mathews state in Technical Bulletin 637 of the United States Department of Agriculture, page 69, that “It can be safely said, however, that on the short‐grass land of the Great Plains there is no penetration of upland surface‐water to the water‐table.”

Nebraska↗