VOL. LXXXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 185 



was driven down the bore-hole to the depth of 24 feet, at which depth the borer 

 pierced through the rock into the water ; and by the manner of its going through, 

 it must probably have broken into a stratum containing water and sand. At the 

 time the borer burst through, the top of the copper pipe was about 3 feet above 

 the bottom of the well : a mixture of sand and water instantly rushed in .through 

 the aperture of the pipe. This happened about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and 

 by 20 minutes past 3 the water of the well stood within 17 feet of the surface. 

 The water rose the first 124 feet in 11 minutes, and the remaining 119 feet in 1 

 hour and 9 minutes. The next day several buckets of water were drawn out, so 

 as to lower the water 4 or 5 feet ; and in a short time the water again rose within 

 1 7 feet of the surface. A sound-line was then let down into the well in order to 

 try its depth. To our great surprize the well was not found by 96 feet so deep as 

 it had been measured before the water was in it ; and the lead brought up a suffi- 

 cient quantity of sand to explain the reason of this difference, by showing that the 

 water had brought along with it 96 feet of sand into the well. Whether the cop- 

 per pipe remained full of sand or not, is not easy to be determined ; but I should 

 rather be inclined to think it did not. 



After the well had continued in the same state several days, the water was drawn 

 out so as to lower it 8 or 10 feet ; and it did not rise again by about a foot so high 

 as it had risen before. At some days interval, water was again drawn out, so as to 

 lower the water as before ; which at each time of drawing rose less and less, till 

 after some considerable time it would rise no more ; and the water being then all 

 drawn out, the sand remained perfectly dry and hard. I now began to think the 

 water lost ; and consequently that all the labour and expence of sinking this well, 

 which by this time were pretty considerable, had been in vain. There remained 

 no alternative but to endeavour to recover it by getting out the sand, or all that had 

 been done would be useless ; and though it became a more difficult task than sink- 

 ing a new well might have been, yet I determined to undertake it, because I knew 

 another well might also be liable to be filled with sand in the same manner that this 

 was. The operation of digging was again necessarily resorted to, and the sand 

 was drawn up in buckets till about 60 feet of it were drawn out, and consequently 

 there remained only 36 feet of sand in the well : that being too light to keep the 

 water down, in an instant it forced again into the well with the same violence it 

 had done before ; and the man who was at the bottom, getting out the sand, was 

 drawn up almost suffocated, having been covered all over by a mixture of sand and 

 water. In a short time the water rose again within 17 feet of the surface, and 

 then ceased to rise, as before. When the water had ceased rising, the sounding- 

 line was again let down, and the well was found to contain full as much sand as it 

 did the first time of the water's coming into it. 



Any further attempt towards recovering the water appeared now in vain ; and 

 most people would I believe have abandoned the undertaking. I again considered 

 that the labour and the expence would be all lost by so doing ; and I determined 



VOL. XVIII. • B Ji 



