Connecticut western news., 1882-10-25
DEEP UNDER GROUND.
Drilling for Water a Thousand Feet
 Down Under Manhattan Island.

The well bored by the Metropolitan Elevated Railroad Company near the foot of Church street, found at the depth of nine hundred feet vein of pure water, cold, clear as crystal. and unexceptionable for use in boilers, but it could only be relied upon to yield steadily twenty gallons per minute.
 The borers are therefore at work now sinking second well, about 8 dozen feet from the first, that is to be supple mented by third. It is intended to sink these additional wells to depth of 1,20O or 1,500 feet, and perhaps even more.
 The second has already been put down little more than one hundred feet, and is going on steadily at the rate of about three inches Tn each work ing hour. This is very slow, but the material now being drilled is a rock that is very nearly 90 per cent. quartz, and excessively hard. Deeper down the drillers expect to find softer rock, and they will also have the advantage of using heavier tools and getting more spring for the drill as the work goes on.
 To those who have never witnessed the drilling of a we'll this work is quite interesting. The iron tool employed is 40 feet long, and weighs 1, 800 pounds. On the end of it is screwed steel ''head" 3 feet long, weighing 200 pounds. This mass of iron and steel is suspended by hemp rope 24 inches in diameter. A huge timber arm, some thing like the walking beam of steam boat, is fitted at one end to 8 crank shaft, and at the other carries pair of huge clamps that are raised and low cred by screw. Those clamps seize the rope about four feet above the floor of the drilling shed, and at each movement of the walking beam the tool is lifted and dropped about eighteen inches.
 The blows thus struck by the falling of that ton of metal recur at the rate oi l about fifty per minute, and at each blow man turns the drill so that its cutting face will strike the rock at an. other angle.
 The earth quivers with these Titanic shocks the noise drowns the sound oi | the steam-engine, the strongly built shed trem bles and shakes as if about tc fall, and the top of the derrick-like frame high in the air, over which the drilling rope runs, seems literally tc wag to and fro. The work is kept uE without intermission for two hours Then the drill is stopped, the great too is hoisted up, the dulled steel head ii unscrewed, and the sand pump, buck ct six feet long, is lowered again auc again to haul up the pulverized roci and water from the bottom of the hole While the drilling has been going or another steel head has been sharpenet at the forge in one corner of the shed where, by an ingenious attachment, th' movement of the walkingb beam is uti lized to blow the bellows. This head i screwed fast to the tool, by means o enormous wrenches, each as much as man can lift. The head just taken oi goes into the forge fire, and the platter shock, and roar of the drill begin again.
 Sometimes tool breaks, or the rop gives way several hundred feet belo, the surface of the ground. Then tn patient use of ingenious appliances perhaps months of steady fishing afte the lost portions, and the expenditur of many thousand dollars become neces sary. No accident of the sort has ot cured here, and the greatest care exercised to avert any.-Nea0 For Sun.