REPORT FROM THE OFFICE OF EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS. 



War Department, Office Explorations and Surveys, 



Washington^ November 20, 1858. 



Sir: 1 submit the following annual report upon the operations of 

 the department carried on under this office. 



I. — the experiment of sinking artesian wells upon the public lands. 



In my last annual report to the department (November 30, 185T,) 

 it was stated that the expedition to continue 'the experiment of sink- 

 ing artesian wells upon the public lands, assigned by the department 

 to Captain John Pope, Topographical Engineers, under instructions 

 of May 5, arrived at the former camp on the Pecos on the 2d of Sep- 

 tember, 1857, and resumed work upon the well which had been bored to 

 the depth of eight hundred and sixty-one feet the previous year. 



The operations at this point were carried on for a year, when they 

 were terminated by authority of the department, it having been con- 

 sidered that they had demonstrated that, with any reasonable amount 

 of expenditure, artesian wells on the Llano Estacado, and plains of 

 similar formation and position, are impracticable. The depth attained 

 was one thousand and fifty feet. 



The work was continued during the winter, which, from its unusual 

 severity, increased the labors and hardships of the party, exposed, as 

 it was, in tents on the bleak plain. The difficulties encountered were 

 far greater than had been anticipated by Captain Pope, but were 

 constantly met with skill, zeal, and perseverance. 



The impracticability of carrying the boring to a greater depth with 

 the means provided, is attributable to the incoherent nature of the 

 soft sandstones, marls, and clays, which, throughout the whole depth 

 of the well, fell in and packed so firmly around the tubing, that, in 

 forcing it down, the threads of the connecting screws were stripped 

 off, and the tubes themselves split and crushed. From the same 

 cause, when it became necessary to withdraw the tubes upon the acci- 

 dental loss in the Avell of the heavy iron rod connected with the cut- 

 ting tools, and subsequently of the slips holding the cutters, long 

 delays occurred; and in one of these cases the well could only be 

 cleared by boring and spearing up a part of the tubing. Near the 

 bottom of the well thin seams of hard limestone were met, the jagged 

 edges of which cut the wooden rods in two, and bent the iron rods so 

 that they speedily became worthless. 



The water used in the boiler of the engine contained material in 

 suspension that formed in six days a hard incrustation half an inch 

 thick, which could only be removed by chiseling. The fine sand in 

 suspension cut away the valves, and the acids in solution rapidly de- 

 stroyed the boiler and other iron work. Much time was thus lost, and 

 new machinery could not be obtained nearer than New Orleans. 



Such, in brief, were the obstacles encountered in sinking the well 



