The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1876-01-15
Why They Didn't Strike Water.

They have been boring an Artesian we'll
out at the iron foundry, and for some
time the work seemed to go along very
nicely. The boring was done with a
two-inch anger fixed in the end of an
iron rod, which was twisted around by
a wheel worked by two men. One day
after they had gone down good many
feet, they tried to pull the rod out, but
it would not come. They were afraid
to use much force, lest the auger should
come off and stay in the hole, and so,
as the boring went along well enough,
thew concluded to keep on turning, and
TO trust to the force of the water, when
thew struck it, to drive the loose dirt up
from the hole. When they had gone
down about three hundred and fifty feet,
thew began to think queer that there
were no signs of water; but they bored
a hundred feet further, and one day,
lust as they were beginning on an
other hundred, there was an excitement
in at Murphy's.
Murphy lives next door to the foundry,
and on the day in question his boy came
running into the house and told HIM to
come into the garden quick, for there
was some kind of an extraordinary AMI
NAL with sharp nose burrowing mp out
of the ground. Murphy concluded that
it must be either potato-bug or
orosshopper that had been Matched in
the Spring. and he took out bottle OF
bug-poison to drop ON 1t when II came
up. When Murphy reached the Spot
there certainly was some KIND OF cfea-
tire slowly pushing its way up through
the sod Its nose seemed to resemble a
sharp point like steel. Murphy dropped
some poison on it, but it didn't appear
to mind the stuff, but kept slow creep
ing up from the ground. Then Murphy
felt it. and was astonished to lind That IL
felt exactly like the end OF fork prong;
He sent the boy in to call Perkins and
the rest of the neighbors. Pretty soon
a large crowd collected, and by this time
the animal had emerged to the extent OF
a couple of inches.
Every body was amazed to to see that
it looked exactly like the end of large
auger. and two or three timld men were
so scared at the idea of such thing ac-
tuallv growing out of the earth that
thew suddenly got over the fence and
left. Perkins couldn't account for 1t,
but he suggested that maybe somebody
might have planted gimlet there, and
| it had taken root and blossomed out into
an anger, but he admitted that he never
heard of such thing before.
Murphy said if that kind OF thing
would work, he probably might go into
the business regularly. and raise axes
by planting hatchets, and guns by SOW
ing pistols The excitement increased
so that the men who were boring the Ar
tesian we'll knocked off and came over
to see the phenomenon. 1t was noticed
that as soon as they stopped work the
anger ceased to grow, and when they
arrived they looked at it for minute,
and one of them said:
BILL, do you recognize that anger
81 think do, said Bill.
"Well, Bill, you go and unhltch that
wheel from the other end of the rod
Bill did so; and then the other man
asked the crowd to take hold of the anger
and pull. They did, and ont came four
hundred and fifty feet of iron rod. The
anger had slid off to the side, turned up
ward. and come to the surface III Muir
Dhys garden. Then the Artesian well
was. abandoned, and Brown, the foundry
man, bought Il steam pump, and began
to get water from the river.