From: "micky wong" <micky.wong@canrem.com>
Subject: ancient chinese deep-dril
Reply-To: "micky wong" <micky.wong@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: soc
Date: 3 Jan 93 22:10:33 EST

In article: <1i217nINNcak@shape.mps.ohio-state.edu>
   Subject: Ancient Chinese Deep-Drilling Technology ???
      From: xiong@shape.mps.ohio-state.edu (Chuyu Xiong) writes:

Lines deleted for brevity.

>I came from Sichuan where the antient drilling tech is still living
>today. I think you can go there to find a 1000 meter deep well
>drilled several hundrad years ago easily. You can also find some
>place such tech is in exhibit. About west media, I do not know where
>you can find hard evidence. But, I remember about 2 years ago, Nova
>aired a movie titled something like "The genius was Chinese", in it,
>you can see the scence of the antient drilling and tech. You may try
>to find out by calling PBS.

>I think some day, we are going to become antient people too. Perhaps,
>people in next century will wonder how those people in this century
>can do such such just having some junk computer, just exactly like
>you can I are doing today. I would say, while tech are moving fast,
>the talent of people are actually not moving. So, the so called talent
>things which today's people can do can be done by antient people too.

>Chuyu Xiong


I found the book "The Genius that was China".... which supports your
veiew.

on page 24...  "SALT of THE EARTH"

Approaching the city of Zigong in western Sichuan province, as Marco
Polo may well have done on his tour of inspection as an imperial
bureaucrat in the service of the Great Kublai Khan, Emperor of China,
you immediately notice the towering derricks, which still stand out
against the skyline as they did in the thirteenth century. For this is
one of the oldest salt-producing areas in the world.
   Salt was essential for the preservation of food, and in China, as in
all other ancient civilizations, people starved in winter unless they
could store sufficient salt meat, fish and vegetables. Starving people
also threatened the stability of the empire and it was therefore not
surprising that salt should become a state monopoly and was not left to
the vagaries and greed of merchants. This monopoly by the state meant
the production techniques developed in one area were rapidly spread by
imperial officials throughout country.
   One of the most impressive things about this ancient technology was
not so much its size but the ingenious use of local materials.
   The traditional derricks were timber structures, some as high as 200
feet and made up of three upright poles like a tripod. From a massive
capstan, turned by bullocks, a rope lifted and dropped a ten-foot long
iron bit. This form of percussion drilling was used to sink the well.
The rope used was made of twisted strips of bamboo and had a tensile
strength equal to that of steel wire. This rope would manipulate the
iron bit 2,000 feet below the surface. The wells were also fitted with
bamboo linings. From the wellhead, bamboo pipes joined together by
tarred cloth carried off the brine and natural gas to the processing
room. The brine was drawn off into a tank and the natural gas used to
boil off the water in large woks(vats) leaving behind the high quality
salt. This was the world's first industrial use of natural gas and also
of drilling wells.
   Methane gas struck at levels of 2,000 feet was dangerous unless mixed
with the right amount of oxygen.  The Chinese solved this problem by
covering the wellhead with a large wooden barrel into which air was
drawn to achieve thee right balance, as in the carburettor of an
automobile. From one wellhead it was possible to heat 600-700 reducing
vats; one well was reported to have run as many as 5,000 vats. This was
salt production an industrial scale not seen in Europe until the
eighteen century.
   Sealed bamboo pipes and leather bags were also used by travelers to
carry the gas around the countryside (as we use gas cylinders when
camping) to provide light and heat. There is even an account of gas
being used to provide street lighting.
   As early as the sixteenth century at Leshan, not far from Zigong,
these same techniques were also used to drill for oil, which came into
common use in that region as a form of fuel.
   The lack of the chemical knowledge to refine the oil meant that its
discovery in China did not have the revolutionary economic impact it was
to have in the west in the late nineteenth century. In the 1850's it
was, however, these Chinese techniques of drilling that were used to
open up the Pennsylvania oil fields.

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