57° HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



The Pasadeyia Standard oi September 21, 1889, said : 



" E. F. Hurlbut's well borers are down more than 900 feet, which is 

 very nearly to sea level, but no artesian flow yet. This is the deepest boring 

 ever made in this section of country. ' ' 



In my geological report before the Science Association of Southern 

 California, in January, 1894, I gave the following account of this well : 



" The boring made on E. F. Hurlbut's place on Orange Grove Avenue in 

 1889-90 was a truly heroic struggle of hops against hope and faith against 

 fate. It went down 13 10 feet without striking bed-rock — nothing but 

 boulders, sand, gravel, etc. Water stood in the tube at sixty feet from the 

 surface, but rose no higher. The bore commenced ten inches in diameter, 

 and a few hundred feet down was reduced to six inches. The massive steel 

 drill, which with its necessary tackle, couplings, etc., was thirty feet long 

 and one-and-a-quarter tons weight, finally dropped aslant into a boulder cavity 

 and became inextricably fastened in one or more of three possible ways : 

 either by slant leverage against the walls of the cavity ; or by a slip or 

 crow^ding down of a large boulder upon it ; or by its own expansion from 

 the increased temperature at that depth. My own opinion is that both of 

 the two last named causes operated in the case, and probably the first also. 

 At any rate, five months were spent in vain efforts to extricate that drill. A 

 two-inch hemp cable was broken ; then a one and one-fourth inch wire cable 

 was obtained, a hydraulic press lifter attached and worked up to a lifting 

 strain of 100 tons, when this powerful wire cable broke also; and the well 

 and tools had to be abandoned at last, with, of course, great loss to the con- 

 tractor, Mr. Charles E. Mosher, of Pasadena, besides about $10,000 loss to 

 Mr. Hurlbut, who wanted to go down at least 2,000 feet, anyway, before 

 giving up the project to get artesian water, or oil, or something." 



In 1 89 1 Mr. Geo. S. Patton bored for artesian water in Mission canyon. 

 At a depth of fifty or sixty feet some water had been found ; then a clay 

 dyke twenty-five to thirty feet in thickness was passed through, and the 

 water already in the well disappeared. The boring was continued to a 

 depth of 200 feet, but no water obtained. In 1874-75 a well had been bored 

 on the east line of Mr. Shorb's place, below the bluff, with experience very 

 similar to that I have given of the Patton well. And about the same time 

 Mr. Mayberry had the same experience in boring for artesian water near the 

 "old mill." Mr. Patton had bored too far south to strike the water bed for 

 which the clay dyke served as a submerged dam, and the others were entirely 

 below the dyke. This clay dyke was the same bed of "boulder clay" first 

 discovered and recognized b}^ Judge Eaton in his water tunnel, in 1882, as 

 heretofore mentioned. And in August, 1894, Gervaise Purcell cut through 

 it by a tunnel which he run for Mrs. Gov. Stoneman, in the lower part of 

 Oak Knoll canyon. Mr. Purcell ranks high as a hydraulic engineer ; and I 

 wrote him inquiring if he had met with this clay deposit at any other points 

 where it would seem to be a part of the same original bed or stratum . Here 

 is his reply : 



Eos Angeles, Cal., January 19, 1895. 

 Dr. H. a. Reid, — Dear Sir: I have found the "boulder clay," as 



