462 T. W. E. DAVID AND E. F. PITTMAN. 
reached the surface and the time that the reading was taken, as 
it was necessary to convey the tube from the site of the bore back 
to the plumber’s in order to have the upper cap-piece removed. 
It is just possible therefore that as both thermometers were in a 
vertical position in the tube, the mercury may have become 
gradually sucked back into the bulbs after having been forced up 
the graduated tube to the temperature of the water near the 
the bottom of the bore. 
On the occasion of the second experiment all the four ther- 
mometers previously described, were employed, no paper being 
wrapped around the bulbs, but the brass dust being continuous 
from the bulbs to the side of the iron pipe. On that occasion, 
however, owing to an obstruction in the bore at a depth of 2,733 
feet, the piano wire became slackened, as the lowering was con- 
tinued until it was estimated that the tube with the thermometers 
had reached a depth of about 2,880 feet. Consequently about 
one hundred and sixty-seven feet of rope was paid out after the 
tube had reached the depth of 2,733 feet, the reduction in weight 
on the rope consequent on the tube becoming lodged at that level 
not being sufficiently perceptible to apprise those in charge of the 
lowering that the bore had become blocked. When, therefore, 
after the tube had remained down the bore for over an hour, the 
work of winding up was commenced, the slackened coils of piano 
wire kinked, and the wire snapped, and the tube was left remain- 
ing in the bore at the depth above mentioned. After an immersion 
of about twenty-seven hours, the tube together with over a hundred 
feet of tangled wire was brought to the surface by the Superin- 
tendent of Drills, Mr. W. H. J. Slee, with the assistance of his 
foreman, Mr. Ayles, who succeeded in grappling the wire with an 
improvised recovering tool in the shape of a heavy iron coupling, 
terminating downwards in an iron prong about a foot long, armed 
at the sides with stiff springs riveted on to the prong at one end, . 
and with the free ends pointing outwards and upwards, like the 
barbs of a harpoon. | 
The upper cap-piece was then rapidly heated in a chafing dish 
of charcoal made of an old nail can with a hole cut out of the 
