Review
A most fascinating aspect of the book is the author's examples of ancient and modern ground water history. Earth's extensive seas of ground water have been fought over and abused, have alternately been the subjects of history and mystery, of mythical and medical lore, of war and peace.
Throughout this book Chapelle explores the custom of tossing coins into wells, the belief in healing spring waters, the relationship between peoples' faiths and ground water, and he explains the art of water witching.
Most importantly, Chapelle introduces us to scientists who have made major discoveries in how various types of aquifers work and which have been harmed or seriously threatened by carelessness, misunderstanding, and abuse due to ignorance....The book is well-illustrated with clever pictures and many charts and line drawings. Additional reading lists follow each chapter.
Can we enjoy and protect our hidden seas? The author gives provocative questions, many examples, some solutions, and inevitably, leaves some questions unanswered. Who should read this book besides the general public? Certainly captains of industry and those who work in any government agency that has any connection to ground water, and that means local, state and federal agencies. Unlike many nonfiction scientific books, this one is a real page-turner, especially for those of us who are interested in earth science. Personally, I'm waiting for a sequel. -- Lapidary Journal, March, 1998
This is a delightful book that should be on the "must-read" list of every ground water scientist, engineer, and student, as well as those of environmentalists, public officials, and others with an interest in or concern about ground water resources. Astronomy and physics have long been noted for writers who were exceptionally skillful in explaining the discoveries and complex concepts of those sciences, both to other scientist and to laymen. Hydrogeology now has an equally skillful writer in Francis H. Chapelle.
Chapelle's book is a masterful integration of the mystical, cultural, and technical aspects of ground water hydrology. The topics covered range from Moses" development of a limestone spring in the Sinai during the Exodus, to the mysticism of water watching, to the fundamental technical contributions of Darcy and Theis, to the modern-day plague of ground water contamination.
Chapelle notes in the preface that "This is a book about how both mysticism and rationality have been used to understand the puzzling behavior of ground water (Part I). It is a book about the strikingly different characteristics of ground water systems found in different parts of the country, and how these differences affect the people who use them (Part 2). It is about the ground water systems can become contaminated by various waste disposal practices, and how perceptions of the contamination are so often different from reality (Part 3). But even more, this is a book about how human beings go about discovering the hidden secrets of the earth. It is about human imagination."
Readers will find Chapelle's effective use of Bible stories, mythology, and case histories in his explanations of the basic principles and concepts of ground water hydrology a welcome relief from traditional ground water reports and textbooks. It is this feature that makes The Hidden Sea a unique contribution to popular scientific writing and which will enhance its interest to both professionals and to non-specialists. -- Ground Water, March/April, 1998
