Omaha daily bee., 1894-01-03
kASsAs'LATEST PRODUCTION.
Hot Air Well discovered that VIII lie Used
to Advantage.

Hot Air Well Discovered that VIII he Used
to Advantage.
TOPEKA, Jan. Especial to THE Elm
Kansas, be 1T in politics, In religion, or in
nature, the unusual, the freakish, is always
happening. The latest wonder is reported
from Linn county, near the Missouri border,
and IL is nothing less than a hot air well.
The story is verified by A. X. Van Doom, a
lumber dealer of Atchison, who was last
week driving from Butler, Bates county,
Mo, to La Cygne. Linn county. just after he
had crossed the Missouri line he
came to the farm of John John
son. The farm lies partly in the
valley of the Marias de Cygnes river and
partly in the upland. The farm house is To-
Gated on n sort of n second bench OF the val
ley and stands back fifty yards from the
main traversed road. AS he approached the
house his attention was first attracted by n
roaring round and next by a crowd OF men,
women and childred gathered about a der
rick. The crowd seemed to be so greatly in
terested and excited that Van Doom and his
driver, their curiosity aroused, got out OF
their buggy and joined it.
They learned that IN boring for water
Johnson had at a depth of ninety feet pene-
trated a cavern to which there seemed to be no
bottom, out of which there constantly poured
q steady flow of hot air, so strong In volume
that 1t was with difficulty that the drill was
held down, and so intense was the heat that
the men at the mouth of the hole were driven
away, and when they released their hold
upon the drill it Immediately shot upward,
damaging the derrick and other machinery
and breaking the gas pipe which connected
with the drill point. Until the drill was
wholly removed from the mouth of the well
the rush of air caused a din of sounds re-
sembling n myriad OF sharp little steam
whistles, and when the obstruction was taken
away the noise sounded like the roar of n
blast furnace.
The find of this phenomenon was made
December Is, but the flow has not for a
moment relaxed in volume or force, and the
roar can DC heard a quarter of n mile away.
TIL curiosity attracts great crowds of
farmers, and is the talk of the country
round about. At first n little vapor was
expelled by the force of the air, but this has
now disappeared and the flow comes out dry
and so hot that 1t tans and even burns ones
hands. MIR. johnson tested the heat by
securing an egg in a wooden clamp and hold
ing 1t in the flow, ana in five minutes it was
roasted as well done as it could be in a bed
of hot ashes.
Local scientists have visited the scene and
tried to trace the flow to the current of
natural gas, which is known to exist in the
adjoining county of Miami, but this theory
is at once dissipated by the fact that there
is no odor of gas or anything else IN the
flow. 1t comes out as sweet ana pure as the
air from n hot air furnace.
While Farmer Johnson's original purpose
was to find water when he bored the well, he
has devised a plan by which he can put his
discovery to good use. His house, which is
less than fifty feet away, he proposes to
move more closely to the well and pipe the
air for heating purposes. He is q chicken
fancier and raises cattle and hogs, and he
will also pipe the air to his chicken house
and barns, tempering it, of course. with cold
air. In the chicken house he proposes to use
the air notTonly for warming purposes, but
will apply it TO incubators. and when he once
gets fairly started he will have a Matching
every day,and spring chickens theyear round.
He already has q good trade in live poultry
with the Arlnours of Kansas City, but he
will abandon this and conhne his sales to
spring chickens, not Only in the Kansas City
market, but wherever he can find a demand.