After much research and talking to one of the reference volunteers at the local library the history of this spring was finally uncovered in the September 12, 1935 daily newspaper. The credit was given to Col. J. F. Miller who developed all the springs in the area before 1885 when the park was purchased by the City of Richmond.

Col. J. F. Miller uncovered the spring by driving a large iron pipe into the ground to a depth of 15 to 25 feet into the deepest part of the valley which now is at the bottom of the lake. A large spring said to be about 25 feet deep was uncovered, which spouted its waters several feet above the surface. It was named Cook Spring in 1896.

Trenches were dug and pipes were run to several location within the park. The coordinates will take you to the southern location where an area has been constructed for access to the spring. This is an extremely popular area that is visited all year around by people who fill there bottles with the cool clear water.

A creek bed supplies the spring water for the ever-flowing fountains in Glen Miller park. An area one-fifth of a mile wide with the creek in its center contains gravel deposits filled with an excess of water. It is believed dozens of springs could be tapped if desired.

An artesian well allows water that has traveled through porous rock from a higher elevation to rise to the surface. This pumpless well seems to defy gravity because the pressure that builds up between layers of rock gets relieved when the water finds a path to the open air. For nearly a thousand years, people have drilled wells to drink this cold, filtered water that doesn't need to be hauled up from the depths .

An aquifer provides the water source for an artesian well. This is the layer of permeable rock, like limestone or sandstone, that absorbs water from an inlet path at high elevation, such as the top of a mountain. The water source might be fed by snowmelt or precipitation .

Porous stone is sandwiched between a top and bottom layer of an impermeable substance, like clay soil or shale rock. This keeps the water pressure high, so that at a point below the entryway of the flow there is enough pressure to bring the water up. Natural springs form in the same way when a gap in the impermeable rock, perhaps triggered by an earthquake, allows the water to rise to the surface .

Artesian wells are found all over the world. Many are found in the US, from Olympia, Washington, to Long Island, New York. The Great Artesian Basin, which provides fresh water to inland Australia, is the largest such basin in the world. Thousands of artesian wells have tapped into this aquifer .

Entire cities have relied on giant underground aquifers to provide fresh, cold water when there are no above-ground rivers. In 1126, monks used a rod with a sharp end, called a bore, to penetrate a layer of impermeable rock and create an artesian well. Their percussive drilling, just hammering on the end of the bore, broke through with sheer human force. The water that rose had percolated through the pores of the rock, so that many contaminants have been filtered out, and it proved safer to drink than standing or river water .

In more recent times, if a town or residency needs water closer to the top of a mountain, they might lie above the line where there is enough pressure to push the water all the way to the surface. In this case, the aquifer can be accessed by drilling a relatively shallow well and then pumping the water up to ground level. Well-drilling has progressed from hammers and bores to machinery that twists a giant drill into the ground. Sometimes, if the pressure is especially strong, because the artesian well is lower in elevation, the water might thrust up like a fountain, and form a geyser .

Maybe you've heard advertisements by water companies wanting to sell you "artesian-well drinking water." Is this water different from other bottled water taken from springs?

The water may not be different, but it comes to the earth's surface a bit differently. Groundwater in aquifers between layers of poorly permeable rock, such as clay or shale, may be confined under pressure. If such a confined aquifer is tapped by a well, water will rise above the top of the aquifer and may even flow from the well onto the land surface. Water confined in this way is said to be under artesian pressure, and the aquifer is called an artesian aquifer. The word artesian comes from the town of Artois in France, the old Roman city of Artesium, where the best known flowing artesian wells were drilled in the Middle Ages. The level to which water will rise in tightly cased wells in artesian aquifers is called the potentiometric surface .

Deep wells drilled into rock to intersect the water table and reaching far below it are often called artesian wells in ordinary conversation, but this is not necessarily a correct use of the term. Such deep wells may be just like ordinary, shallower wells; great depth alone does not automatically make them artesian wells. The word artesian, properly used, refers to situations where the water is confined under pressure below layers of relatively impermeable rock. The picture to the right shows an artesian well with the potentiometric surface being just above the land surface, but, as the picture above shows, artesian pressure can be very strong!

Example of an Artesian Spring

Special Equipment need to complete this earth cache.

A container to measure water flow .

Thermometer .

Watch .

To log this EarthCache, you must:

1. Measure the water flow in units per minute. For example, record the time it takes to fill a litre, gallon, quart or whatever size container you have, and convert that result to give a "units per minute" waterflow .

2. Email the difference of air temperature to water temperature. To do this measure the air temperature, measure the water temperature, calculate the difference.

3. Artesian wells are named after which former french province?

Optional: Please post a picture of you and/or your GPS at this well.