Abstract

The Hidden Sea is divided into three parts. The first, "Myths and Models," tells "how both mysticism and rationality have been used to understand the puzzling behavior of groundwater." Second is "Bays in the Sea," which reports on "the strikingly different characteristics of ground water systems found in different parts of the country, and how their differences affect the people who use them." The last part, "Evil and the Wells," discusses "how ground water systems can become contaminated by various waste disposal practices, and how perceptions of this contamination are so often different from reality." Francis Chapelle, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Columbia, South Carolina, ends his Preface by declaring that "even more this is a book about how human beings go about discovering the hidden secrets of the earth. It is about human imagination."