Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-02-07
MARVELLOUS WELLS.
SOME OF THE WONDERS FOUND
BY JOHN w. WRIGHT.

SOME OF THE WONDERS FOUND
BY JOHN w. WRIGHT.
Wells That Roar and Wells That Boil.
Some Are Hot and Others Are Cold.
Electric Wells Are Very Common-A
Few of the Most Noteworthy.
Algona, Kossuth county, Ia, was former
~ the proud possessor of a roaring well of
tie typical Sort but as nothing has been
written about it for the past five or six years,
am inclined to the belief that it has long
since gone the way of Jedda's lion land did
cease to roar" When it was in active opera
ton it was only forty-five feet deep; shallow
as it was it seems to have been pretty close
to the place denied so vehemently by Inger-
soil, as the waters were boiling hot and gave
off gas strongly impregnated with sulphur.
Polk county, Neb., is well provided with
wells which roar and ebb and ho'y with an
unseen tide, having between a dozen and
twenty of these remarkable curiosities.
There are hours, regular and uniform, in
which the air will rush and with a loud,
Kissing sound, and again an equal number of
hours when it seems that all the air i'll the
Platte valley will be sucked into their cavern
GUS depths.
The period of this ebb and flow does not
seem to depend upon either the seasons or
the state of the weather, but are thought to
be somewhat regulated by the direction of
the wind. The farmers in Polk Butler and
Colfax counties, the three counties best pro-
vided with tide regulated, air expelling wells,
all of which seem to be about the same depth
and to have struck the same porous strata,
believe their wells to be in some way con-
nected with the Platte river. If any scien-
tific reasons have ever been given in explana-
ton of the phenomena these roaring wells
present, it has escaped the writer's notice.
That there are scientific reasons why these
oddities should exist, he has not the least
doubt.
ELECTRIC WELLS.
Electric wells are quite numerous through
out the United States, of different depths and
located at any height from ten feet to 10, 900
feet above the sea level. The people in tie
vicinity of one of these local rarities always
believe theirs to be the only genuine electric
well in existence, whereas it seems to be the
rule rather than the exception to strike more
or less magnetism, which, in most every case
imparts electrical qualities to the water in
all drilled wells having depth of over 600
feet.
On the McGinnis lot in Ithaca these is an
electric well so strongly impregnated with
the subtle fluid that water cannot be drawn
except with rope. 1t developed its cleo
trical qualities all of sudden and almost
shocked the life out of the matron McGinnis
when she attempted to draw up water with
the old chain windlass which had done SER
vice many years.
John V. Farwell's farm near Montezuma,
Ia, is provided with most wonderful cleo
trical well, which is over 1900 feet deep. 1t
possesses undoubted medicinal qualities in a
remarkable degree, and is to the people OF
Powsheik county what Ponce de Leon hoped
Florida would prove to be to him.
Wells which are veritable paradoxes in
their nature, and which, instead of giving
forth cooling draught to the tired and foot
sore wayfarer, give him water at the boiling
point, are more numerous than the electric
wells of which have told you, even exceed
ing in number the frozen wells, Of which
mention will be made further on. AS gen
eral thing these boiling wells are very deep,
but cases in which heated water has been
struck at surprising short distance from
the surface are not unknown.
At Seymour, Ind, on the farm of John M
| Held, a stream of boiling water was struck
by workmen engaged in digging well, when
| only seven feet from the top of the ground
| When the water was caught in vessels and
| allowed to cool, it deposited fine sand, in
which local geologist claimed to have found
dust from both diamonds and rubies.
A well on the premises Of DR.. H. Lane, al
Portland, Ore, from which water for drink
ing and cooking purposes had been used fol
years, in February, 1888, took turn at Civ
ing water which, in the DOCTORS language
was "a thousand times hotter than boiling"
| At Ritzville, Wash, there is located "hot'
well, which cannot be said to be boiling
well, because there is nothing in it, except air
to boil.
In sinking the well an immense under
ground cavity was penetrated, which, as soor
as the drill was withdrawn, belched forth
volumes of hot air equal to a volcanic erup
ton. Everything is withered within ten fee
of the hole and the thickest skinned person
cannot bear to pass his hand over the opening
FROZEN WELLS.
Frozen wells are almost as numerous ant
the phenomena they present almost as mex
plicable as that of the boiling wells. Thu
most noted of these, perhaps is the famous
frozen well of Yakutsk, Siberia. The NATIVES
of that region declared to member of tn,
Russian academy, early in the present cen
tury, that on digging for water in the vicin
ity of the town mentioned they had nevel
been able to sink through the frozen soil
Investigations proved the truth of this state
ment, whereupon the academy decided to dig
well to satisfy their curiosity. Work OF
the we'll was begun in 1873, and continued a
intervals for the next sixteen years, when i
was abandoned after depth of $50 feet hae
been reached, every inch of which wa
through frozen ground.
Brandon, VT, has rare curiosity in tn
shape of an ice well, which was dug in No
vember, 1855 The first fourteen feet of thi
well was mixture of clay and gravel, thel
deposit of twelve feet of hard frozen ma
terial of the same kind. At thirty-6ve fee
it was left as finished. Since that time, sum
mer and winter the same, the well has hat
two feet of solidly frozen water at the bot
tom and walls coated with the same material
John W. Wright in St. Louis Republic.