15 



We shall, however, do well enough during the winter, and shall 

 doubtless pass that portion of it which yet remains for us on this 

 plain without suflering any hardship. 



I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, 



JOHN POPE, 

 Captain Top. Eng's, commanding expedition. 

 Captain A. A, Humphreys, Top. Eng's, 



In charge Office Explorations and Stirveys, Washington, D. C 



Camp on the Pecos River, Fehmary 26, 1858. 



Sir : I have the honor to report for the information of the War De- 

 partment, that the work near this place is still unfinished. 



The difficulty in the first instance of sinking tubing to a depth of 

 one thousand feet through strata so slightly coherent as to fall in at 

 almost every point of the entire depth, and which bound the tube so 

 as to render it almost impossible to force it down, consumed much 

 time and labor. The breaking of the boring apparatus near the lower 

 extremity (the middle of an iron sinker thirty feet in length) occa- 

 sioned further delay, very much prolonged by the caving in of the 

 well above the top of the broken sinker, so as to render a great deal 

 of labor necessary to get hold of it and withdraw it. When all things 

 had been finally set to rights, Ave had the misfortune, after boring to 

 a depth of 1,047 feet, to burst the cast-iron pump of the engine, and 

 I have been obliged to send as far as Galveston to procure another, 

 as there is no possibility of repairing or procuring such a casting 

 here. The work still goes on, however, as the broken pump can still 

 be made to work, and I have abundant force to push the work by 

 hand if it becomes necessary. 



We are boring in hard limestone, very black, and easily recog- 

 nizable in its outcrop at the head of Delaware creek, about forty feet 

 above the surface of the springs forming the sources of that stream. 



I entertain the hope daily of completing the work, which would, no 

 doubt, have been finished long since but for the many and wholly un- 

 usual and unanticipated accidents I have referred to. 



I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, 



JOHN POPE, 

 Captain Topographical Engineers. 



Captain A. A. Humphreys, ^ 



Toj). Eng^ s, in charge of office. 



Camp on Pecos River, April 1, 1858. 

 Sir : I regret to report that the accidents and difficulties we have 

 met with in the prosecution of the work near this place have pre- 

 vented as yet any advancement of the boring since my last report. 

 The water of the Pecos river, which we are obliged to use in the 



