HANCOCK COUNTY. 367 



my lot, which is fifty by two hundred feet. I have never been able to go dow^i to the 

 rock without encountering this gas, and have filled up a number of wells. The dis- 

 tance to the rock two hundred feet south is fourteen feet; one hundred feet north, 

 twelve feet ; thence to the river, one-fourth mile north, the average depth to the rock 

 is fourteen feet, but it is very undulating. South one-half mile limestone crops out 

 through the surface, rising about twenty feet above the level of my lot. In 1865 a 

 company leased the privilege of drilling on my lot. They drilled one hundred and 

 thirty-five feet in limestone, when the augur got fast, and they gave up the enterprise. 

 I now use gas from that well, the supply being more abundant than from those where 

 no drilling was done. In drilling this well, at a depth of seventy-one feet from the 

 surface of the rock the drill dropped six inches through a vein of water that kept the 

 hole clear from drillings for three days after, so that the sand-pump could not be 

 sunk down without weights, and it brought up no chippings and sand during the 

 three days after this vein of water was struck, the well being one hundred and thirty- 

 five feet from the surface of the rock. 



" Gas has been struck in small quantities in various parts of the town, but unless 

 they strike crevices there is not a sufficient supply to light a dwelling-house. 



" The surface of the rock in other parts than where I live is more solid. On my 

 lot it seems to be turned up edgewise, its surface being covered with a mixture of 

 pebbles, sand, bowlders, and blue clay, "Whenever you dig through this mixture gas 

 is invariably found. There seems to be a prominence in the rock, and a cracking and 

 breaking up of the mass, so that the gas is concentrated! on my lot in much greater 

 quantities than in any other part of the town as yet developed. One hundred and 

 twenty-five feet east of my well another was dug eleven feet deep, from which, in ex- 

 treme dry weather only, gas issues : in wet weather it is entirely cut off. The wells 

 on my lot are the only ones not intermittent in their action. In digging the sewers 

 through the main street, they being an average of eight feet from the surface, a vein 

 of sulphureted hydrogen gas was developed which has an extremely offensive smell, 

 like rotten eggs, and which becomes oppressive when a wind from the north blowing 

 up the mouths of the sewers, which are almost always exposed, forces the gas into 

 the streets, near the sidewalks, through the catch-basins. The wells that give sul- 

 phureted water are all from the rock. There was a well dug thirteen feet deep to the 

 rock, striking a crevice from which issues an inexhaustible supply of highly impreg- 

 nated sulphur water. It is on the west side of Main street, three hundred feet north 

 and one hundred and sixty feet west of my well. A very small quantity, say a 

 drachm, of sugar of lead in a bucketful of this water colors it an intense black. 

 There is only one other well drilled in the rock. It is four hundred feet north and a 

 thousand east of my well. It is forty feet in the rock : no gas or sulphur. There is 

 a well dug on the fair ground, forty feet in the rock, one-half mile south and west of 

 my well r no gas or sulphur. 



" The gas which I use was analyzed in 1865 by Prof. Chilton, of New York City, 

 and pronounced by him to be light carbureted hydrogen, and to come from petro- 

 leum. It smells like benzole or gasoline. It makes a very bright light. Near the 

 burner, in the flame, are small explosions or scintillations, which, I suppose, are the 

 particles of carbon burning." 



