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Experiments in Boring for Fresh Water.. 137 
fresh water springs, salt water was often obtained from great 
depths, where otherwise it would not have been procured,— 
and thus, by degrees, it became as common to bring salt'wa- 
ter above the surface, as it was formerly to dig wells. ‘In - 
this state the art rested, in America, until the year 1823, 
when Mr. Levi Disbrow, after seeing the operation of boring 
in the western States, formed the project of bringing Fresh 
water above the surface, in New-Jersey 
We will now cite some of the principal facts relating to 
Mr. Disbrow’s operatio 
1. At the distiliery of Mr. Bostwick, at Brunswick, New- 
Jersey, at the depth of 175 feet, and 40 above the Raritan 
river, good w water was obtained, which for 2} years 
charged 17 gallons a minute, at three feet above the ground. 
At the depth of 137 feet, the water overflowed the surface, 
‘but the boring was continued to the depth of 175 feet, to in- 
crease the quantity. The strata perforated, were chiefly old 
red sandstone, with occasional thin strata of slate or gray 
wacke, and at long intervals blue clay occurred. By tap- 
ping the tube four feet from: the top, and inserting a tube half 
as large as the main ene, a copious supply of water, at the 
rate of 4;'5 gallons the minute was obtained, for a distillery 
Situated on lower ground, while, from the top of the tube, the 
Water flows at the rate of 14 gallons the minute, to supply a 
house, stables, a milk-house,* &c. The temperature is 52° 
Fahr. and the cost was $425. The watér in Brunswick is 
stated to be generally brackish, and emarcehe to the taste, 
Ae boring was commenced in May, 1824. 
2. This was pauperis’ August 7, 1824, og one mile 
from the preceding, and 47 feet above Rari. 
tan—passed 60 feet through “ soft red shell, “i (red mous 
When they struck the first vein of water. At 110 feet they 
encountered a rock “harder than granite.” It was about 
four feet in thickness, and in the centre of it the poles of the 
borer became so magnetized, that a heavy jack-knife could 
be suspended from them. The magnetizing stratum seemed 
to be about four inches in thickness. Water was fae 
found either in the stratum immediately above, or immedi+ 
ately below the red shell. Clay was not slinnebied until to~ 
wards the end of the boring, when they perforated four or five 
feet of blue clay, and at. the depth of 394 feet struck a vein 
* Franklin Magazine, Vol. II. p. 38. 
VOR. XII. No. I, 18 
