GEOLOGY. 297 



a bed of loose sand was found, -which poured into the well. Such a 

 bed the engineer at first strove to exhaust that is, to draw out with 

 the bucket'all the sand that would run in and impede the work. By 

 this operation, repeated at various points, the well finally consisted of 

 a series of chambers, some perhaps of several feet in diameter, one be- 

 low the other, and all connected together by the narrow neck-like pas- 

 sage of the well, three and a half inches diameter, through the inter- 

 mediate rocks. At 700 feet the sands ran in so steadily and in such 

 quantities, that no progress could be made. The engineer generally 

 found the well 50 or 100 feet, sometimes 140 feet less deep in the morn- 

 ing than he had left it the preceding evening. 



"After toiling in vain for a long time to exhaust the streams, it was 

 determined to shut them out by a system of tubing. To do this the 

 passages through all the rocks had to be opened from three and a half 

 to fully five inches diameter. This was done. At the depth of four 

 hundred and seventy feet there was a rock on which the tools had 

 generally impinged, and which caught the tubes. Withdrawing these 

 that passage was worked over again. It appeared that a nodule in 

 the rock projected into the passage, and had always driven the tools 

 into an oblique direction. It was at length broken off. Below this 

 rock was a large chamber, and the tools now entering it, without los- 

 ing their perpendicularity, struck the bottom a little on one side of 

 the bore previously made, which they never could be afterwards in- 

 duced to enter. From this point down the whole work had to be done 

 over again. This was finally effected, and sheet iron tubes were sent 

 down to shut out the sands. The well was then continued down to 

 1.020 feet ; but again the sands came in, and filled the well for over a 

 hundred feet. The tubing, several hundred feet of which had been 

 sent down, was found too light and unmanageable. The engineer re- 



t 1 C3 C? 



solved to withdraw it, and insert instead wrought iron tubes, 4| exter- 

 nal and 4 inches internal diameter, screwed together so as to form one 

 continuous tube from the bottom of the well to the surface of the 

 earth. This was the largest size which the somewhat warped cast iron 

 tubing at top would allow to pass through. Twenty-four feet of the 

 light tubing obstinately refused to be extracted, and remained fixed in 

 the well, more than 700 feet below the surface. Nothing daunted, the 

 engineer thrust a portion of it aside into the chambers, and cut his 

 way through the rest ; and has finally succeeded in sinking the 

 wrought iron tubes to the depth of 1,102 feet, and has bored 43 feet 

 lower still. In sinking these tubes, which generally followed a few 

 feet behind the auger or chisel, little difficulty was met, save from the 

 rocks. When one of these was encountered, the tube was arrested, 

 if possible, a foot or eighteen inches above its surface, and a tool in- 

 vented by Mr. Welton was sent down, which could be opened when 

 on the bottom, so as to cut a hole five inches diameter, and which 

 could be closed at pleasure so as to be withdrawn again through the 

 narrower passage of tube. At times the tubes would rest immediate- 

 ly on the rock, or would be caught by some protuberance while pass- 

 ing through it. In this case, the tool just referred to was not suffi- 



