The Pensacola journal., 1912-01-11

Lid Already the Cats and Dogs and
BOOSTERS and Hens and Children have
begun to stumble in the Well. Little
Johnny tumbled in yesterday. His
rnarna is in bed crying. His papa is
sitting on the front porch in the bright
moonlight thinking. A pail is over the
House. Nam aand Papa can't forget
the Well till it is safely closed. High
hoi the greatest labor of Hercules is
10 Go all over again! Who can cover
the Well?
Now here is a true account OF the
Well, and when you read this. you
ought to sit on the porch in the moon
light and think-which is healthy but
unsafe for you and for us all The
following. remember, is a figure Of
speech. merely:
T. was while we lived in the FIce
house on the beach. We had city water
from the standpipe. There was shrub
ber.. in the yard-a tangle of Christ
mas Berry bushes overrun with morn
ing glory vines and with cats. The
children were at school. I was sneak
ing through the bushes armed with
% rife trying to kill cats. That
was when / discovered the Open Well.
There it was-Open. On the rim, doz-
inp, was fuzzy, yellow cat. sQuint-
cd down the iron barrel-Spati The
cat twisted around on its head and
tumbled in the Open Well. l stood by
the edge of the Innocent Well and
reeped in. As l could not hear the
cat Topping around, I concluded he
had sunk in the water which same.
normal wells keep in their bottoms. An
empty whiskey flask lay in the morn
ing glory vine near and ! threw the
glass bottle in after the cat. That
was when I began to take on goose
flesh. The glass bottle left my hand
and there was a Hush-no sound I
let fall q brick. No reassuring splash
answered me So / procured a ball Of
kite-cord and on one end tier a bottle
full of shot and plumbed the we'll
THAT ball Of cord cost fifteen cents
and was five hundred yards lond and
did not reach the bottom of the well.
Why this was more interesting than
the Arabian Nights! went out to
get Punch Lovett, the sanest man in
town, to investigate. After buying a
dollars worth of cord, Punch and I
and Walter Roberts went to the edge
of the open well. let them pay out
the cord on the end of which we had
tied hunk of lead. This was too un-
canny for me (you know l have been
insane. Ny wife says have been in
sane three times and recovered twice.
This Deep Well business got my goat.
SO Punch and Walter Roberts let out
the cord for me. They paid out the
whole dollars worth and found no
bottom. You may not believe it. but
Walter Roberts actually stopped laugh
ing for a short while! 1 went down
town and told Leland J. Henderson
and Captain Amos Sharit about the
Peculiar Well and we bought more
cord and--it was no use. Then sew
eral county officials made affidavits
and forwarded them to the head of the
Smithsonian Institute. 1t sent a man
by the name of III. Wellington Dang
ley, Ph. D., to Apalachicola to inves-
tigate. When he arrived and souned
with q cord he telegraphed for lot Of
strong flexible wire and Lonnie Por-
ter rigged up a MINDLESS. We fastened
bigpiece of iron to the wire and let
II descend into the Peter Newell Hole
In The Ground. It descended for five
weeks at the rate of one mile of wire
every six minutes for ten hours a
day and then slowly the weight
stopped pulling and stopped. H. Wei
lington Dangley. Phi. D.. of the
Smithsonian Institute, wound up
about thousand feet of wire. and
slowly descended again for few min
utes-the weight was sick--it stopped.
He rapidly calculated the amount OF
wire unreeled. 1t came to exactly 49,
S5S,0s8 ft.-eight feet over 1922 miles.
Exactly half way through the earth!
That was all.
The bottomless well became seven
days wonder and then everybody for
got it but us. II got on my nerves. l
lest my mind. When recovered we
moved to the Benny Bryant house. We
had city water from the standpipe
there. But there was an open well in
the yard also. At last l gathered
enough courage to try to see how deep
that well was and neither could l find
any bottom to it. 1t was no use.
Every yard in Apalachicola contained
a similar Well Also every yard on
the surface of the Earth, for that