Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-02-06
PROJEOT FOR BORING A BIG HOLE
AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION.
ENFORCEMENT OF HADES
No Extraordinary Degree of Heat
Looked for by the Engineer-A
Russian Expensive Experiment
Some Scientific Results Expected as
Side Issues.

4
management, is to dig a series Of
eight vertical shafts, each 800 feet in
/ length, one beginning where another
leaves off. Two passenger elevators
are TO run in each shaft, and there
/ are to be galleries or stations at the
end Of each elevator journey, where
refreshments will be served under the
blaze of electric lights We are told
/ that the excavation will be thoroughly
ventilated, by what means has not vet
! been made known, and that the traV-
/ eler who descends to the lowest sal
/ iory depth will be 4,S0G feet below the
surface from which he started. The
estimated cost is $500, GOO, which. one
would think, is quite moderate for so
large an undertaking. The protector
! says he hopes to threw new light upon
the question of the increase Of tenn
perature as greater depths within the
earth's core are attained, and upon
other subterranean problems.
One thing is quite certain, and that
is that the men who will dig this pro-
digious hole will not be involved in
the predicament that defeated the
Russian merchant i'll Yakusck, Siberia,
about sixty yearsago. The Lena river
water was not good enough for him
and so he decided to dig we'll. His
men had only eXCavated a few feet
with pick and shovel when they de-
clared that they had struck solid rock.
! 1t was only frozen earth, however, and
so the merchant kept his men picking
away, expecting every day to get
through the stratum of frozen earth.
He was a little surprised when the
summer season ended and he was still
in solidly frozen soil, but the next
! spring he courageously began work
again and did not stop till he had dug
his way through los feet of earth as
| haru as a rock. Then he covered the
hole with boards and decided to use
river water a little longer.
The Academy of Sciences in ST..
Petersburg heard this story and
thought it would be good thing, IN
the interest of science, to carry on the
work. The academy, however, wearied
of paying the bills when it's diggers
reached depth of 1872 feet and were
still in solidly frozen ground. From
the temperature at the bottom they es-
timated that the ground was probably
frozen 20 a depth of over 600 feet. The
big hole with it's frozen walls still ex-
/ lists, unless someone, in quite recent
years has taken the trouble to fill
it up.
/ There is reason to doubt that M.
! Grousset's big hole in Paris will add
very much to our present knowledge
Of subterranean problems, as he seems
to hope it will. Behring'S have now been
carried about 900 feet nearer the CEN
| ter of the earth than it is proposed to
extend the underground pleasure route
in Paris. 1t is probable that the deep
est boring yet made is that made at
Schladebach, between Leipsic and
Merseburg, Germany, where a distance
of about $40 feet from the surface
had been attained, with a tempera-
ture at the bottom of 56.6 degrees CEN
tigrade, a little more than half the
way between the freezing and the boil
ing point of water. Nobody can tell
yet whether the passengers at the
Paris fair will be made very uncom-
Portable by the heat at the bottom of
the shafts. Such thing as uniform
rate of heat increase apparently does
not exist in the subterranean regions.
G. K. Gilbert says that the rate of in
crease varies in different places, rang
ing from 1 degree Fahrenheit for each
$50 feet of descent. The general or
normal rate is perhaps l degree in rs
feet. There are many local causes
that affect the increase of heat. For
instance, IL some of the lower levels
of the Comstock mines in Nevada,
through not more than one-half as
deep as the boring at Schladebach, the
men could work only three or four
hours at time, owing to the terrific
heat. This was caused by scalding
water forced up from lower depths,
which raised the temperature to 1872
degrees Fahrenheit.
1t does not quite follow because the
Paris tourist will descend nearly a
mile into the earth that he will find
there almost irtclerable heat. But
then again he may. AS this eXcava-
ton is to be by no means the deepest
on record, and as we have no reason
to believe that anything out of the
common will be found, it will not be
surprising if about the only scientific
interest attached to the enterprise
will be the revealing of the subterra-
mean conditions underlying Paris.
The work will be quite sure, at least,
to tell us how thick is the formation
Of chalk which urderlies Paris, for we
know that the same foundation that
shows itself in glittering whiteness IN
the cliffs of Dover is spread far over
France and that Paris is built
above it.
We often hear the erroneous state
ment that the temperature Of the earth
increases as descent is made from the
surface into the crust. A moments
reflection would tell any one that usu-
ally the temperature decreases until
point is reached where solar and at
mospheric influences no longer have
particle of effect. In this latitude the
line of perpetually even temperature
is believed to be gained at a depth Of
about sixty feet Below that line Oh
influence from without penetrates, and
the increase in heat begins as the
thermal influences below assert their
sway. But the Paris shafts will not