Ground Water in the Norwalk, Suffield, and Glastonbury Areas, Connecticut

40 do do 41 ...do ..do Do. 42 do do 43 Terrace Plain do...... do Do. 44 ..do 45 do Do. 46 .do.... .do 49 ..do ...do 50 do. House pump Chain pump Windlass Do. 53 54 Richard Bogan.. Terrace Slope.. ... .do Fails. For assay see p. 136. Fails. 56 Gravity system . . . Chain piunp Windlass rig N<infailinf- 58 do Do. 66 .....do.... SUFIflELD. Drilled ircil.s in Enfield. 139 a £3 xi o e a b< No. on in. IV. Owner. Topo- graphic situation. 5-3 .2 — 'i Kind of rofk. Remarks. fA H « Q « ? Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. In. Gals. 7 R. E. Davidson. Plain. . . 165 100 36 8 ' 6 25 Sandstone. Temperdturo 50' F. 8 F.W.Olmsted.. ...do.... 165 147 40 14 6 22 ...do U Dr. Tnornton Vail. Ridge... 185 487 37 90 50 ...do. PumpRd by air lift ;« Richard Smith. Plain . . . 125 418 236 40 6 40 ...do For analysis see 47 ...do 185 185 38 257 34 25 28 16 6 8 "iio ...do ...do p. 130.O 48 HazardvilleWa- ...do.... tor Co. 59 II. E. Picrcp ...do 135 100 82 70 38 44 20 20 6 6 36 48 ...do ...do 60 SaiimolNeelon.. Slopo. . . 01 01m Ohmtod... ...do.... 90 144 28 24 6 60 ...do 62 David Gokk'n... ...do 110 112 69 27 6 45 ...do 63 Joseph Rest t-k... Plain . . . 145 276 30 20 6 42 ...do 64 H. K. Holbrook. Slope . . . 190 120 18 6 45 ...do 69 Fred Farbcr ...do.... 95 75 51 28 6 38 ...do '■■ Only 1 quart a minute at 380 feet, 18 gallons a minute at 400 feet, and full flow of 40 gallons a minute at 418 feet. ^l)riii{/s in Enfield. No. on PI. IV. Owner. E. P. Terry. Topographic situation. Swale . do. Foot of terrace. Foot of slope. . By brook Elevation above sea level. Feet. 80 155 140 80 145 Temper- ! Yield per ature. 1 minute. °F. I Gallons. 50(?) 50 Large . . 100(?) Remarlis. Pumped to tanks. Pumped by water wheel to tank. Formerly suppUed village of Scitico. Water from stratified drift. For assay see p. 136. SUFFIELD. AREA, POPULATION, AND INDUSTRIES. Suffield is a large farming town near the middle of the north boundary of Hartford County, and is bounded on the north by INIassachusetts and on the east by Connecticut River. The town has an area of 43 square miles, of which 13 square miles, or 30 per cent, is wooded. The woodlands are in small or moderate-sized patches that are well distributed, though they are a little more abundant on the hills in the western part of the town. There are 60 miles of road in the town, including 5 miles of the Hartford- Springfield trunk line and 5 miles of road that is in part maintained by the State. The West Side trolley line of the Hartford & Springfield Street Railway Co. runs through Suffield. A branch of the Hartford division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad joins the main line at Windsor Locks. The Springfield branch of the Central New England Railway crosses the town from north to south 140 GROUISTD WATER IN NOEV/ALK AND OTHER AREAS, CONN. and lias stations at West Snffield and Sheldon Street. The North- ampton division (Canal Eoad) of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad runs across the west corner of Suffield, and its station at Congamoncl is used by the residents of that part of the town. The principal settlement is Suffield, a village spread out along 2 miles of the main highway between Hartford and Springfield. West Suffield is a smaller village that lies 3 miles to the west. There are stores, hotels, and a post office at each of these places. Suffield was incorporated by Massachusetts in 1674 and was an- nexed to Connecticut in 1749. Since then there has been no change in its organization or territorial extent. In 1910 the population was 3.841, an increase of 320, or 9 per cent, over the population of 1900, and equivalent to a density of population of 89 inhabitants to the square mile. The following table shows the changes in population since the annexation to Connecticut : Population of Suffield, llo6-1910.°- ' Year. Popula- tion. Per cent change. Year. Popula- tion. Per cent change. 1756 1,438 2,017 2, 301 2,467 2,686 2,680 2,681 2,690 1840 1850 2,669 2,962 3,260 3,277 3,225 3,169 3,521 3,841 — 1 1774 40 14 7 5 0 0 0 11 1782 1860 1870 10 1790 . . 1 ISOO 1880 — 2 ISIO. . ... 1890 1820 1900 1910 11 1830. 9 a Connecticut Register and Manual, 1919, p. 641. During most of the nineteenth century the population changed T'ery little, but the last two censuses show some increase, due, pre- sumably, to the culture of leaf tobacco for cigar wrappers and binders and to the establishment of manufactures of cigars, which are the principal industries of the town. SURFACE FEATURES AlTD GEOLOGIC STRUCTURE. Most of Suffield has a gently undulating surface, interrupted by two high trap ridges and by rather broad valleys. The plain char- acter is best developed in the northwest corner of the town, where it has an elevation of 240 to 280 feet above sea level, and along the south boundary, where it ranges from 120 to 160 feet in elevation; The eastern edge of the plain slopes gently eastward for about a mile but pitches sharply down to Connecticut River, making low cliffs in places. The northward extension of the trap ridges of Peak Moun- tain has its highest point a mile north of the East Granby town line, where it is 660 feet above sea level. As Connecticut River at the SUFFIELD. 141 southeast corner of tlio toAvn is only about 20 feet above sea level, the area has a range in elevation of 640 feet. During the Triassic period central Connecticut was a great valley in which a thick series of sediments, sands, silt, ckiy, and gravel was deposited. These sediments were hardened and cemented to form the red sandstone, shale, and conglomerate that crop out at many places. The process of deposition was interrupted three times by the quiet pouring out over the valley floor of lava that on solidifying became the trap sills characteristic of the region. The relation of these sheets and the sandstones with which they are intercalated is shown in the following table, which is quoted from Davis :^ Section of the TrUtssin of Covnecticut. Feet. Upper sandstones 3, -500 Posterior trap sheet 100-150 Posterior sliales and slialy sandstones 1, 200 Main trap sheet 400-500 Anterior shales and shaly sandstones 300-1, 000 Anterior trap sheet 0-250 Lower sandstones 5,000-6,500 In the present discussion the name " sandstone " is frequently used to mean all the Triassic sedimentary rocks, whether shale, conglom- erate, limestone, or true sandstone. In places there are trap sheets and dikes that were forced into the sediments after they had been deposited. Subsequent to their consolidation these rocks were broken into great fault blocks and tilted to the east. Erosion has cut away the softer sediments and left the trap sheets exposed so that they form prominent hills and ridges. The ridge of which Peak Mountain is a part is underlain by and owes its topographic prominence to the extrusive trap sheets. Manitick Mountain in the west part of Suffield is similarly dependent on one of the trap m.asses intruded into the sediments after their deposition. Just before the advance of the great ice sheet in the glacial epoch this territory was somewhat more rugged than it now is. There were the two trap ridges and six or seven ridges formed by resistant zones in the sandstone, all running north and south. The position of the sandstone ridges is roughly the same as the north-south strips of till shown on the geologic map (PL V). The ice sheet as it moved over these hills broke and ground off the projecting points and wore away the whole surface more or less. The resulting debris, which is called till, was plastered rather uniformly over the whole region, but especially in the depressions, thus reducing the ruggedness of the ' Davis, W. M., Tht> Triassic formation of Connecticut : U. S. Geol. Survey Eighteentli Ann. Kept., pt. 2, pp. 28 aaid 29, 1898. [142 GROUND WATER IN NOSWALK AND OTHER AREAS, COTTIvr. topography. This process was still further continued by the deposi- tion of stratified drift in the valleys by ice-borne streams. These streams carried much sediment derived in part from the ice and in part from reworkuig- of the till. As these streams were slowed up a little beyond the front of the glacier they dropped their loads and so built up the stratified drift plains that form much of the floor of the valley of central Connecticut. The till-covered sandstone hills Were in part buried so that now only their tops show. In some a large part of the bulk is above the stratified drift, as, for example, the hill on which the village of Suffield is situated and which extends north to Buck Hill, but of others, such as those south of West Suf- field, only a little protrudes. It is quite possible that some till-cov- ered hills are completely buried and may eventually be exposed if erosion removes the stratified drift. West of Peak Mountain the elevation of the boundary between the stratified drift and the till ranges from 240 to 280 feet above sea level, and on the east from 100 to 220 feet, being lowest near Connecticut Elver. The greater height west of Peak Mountain is presumably due to the fact that this ridge clammed the streams from the glacier and so raised the level to which they worked. Along Connecticut River, between Thomp- sonville and King Island, are rather large areas of till, which were probably formerly covered by stratified drift, but have been exposed by erosion. This portion of the Connecticut flows in a relatively new channel, and erosion along and near it has been great. The relation of the topography to the different rocks is shown in the section (fig. 18, p. 126), the position of which is indicated by the line D-D' on the maps (Pis. IV and V).