The Adair County news. [volume] (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987, 1922-01-03


to eat. There was plenty of bread,
and some cold fried ham, and cutting
a couple Of generous sandwiches, /
hiked out to make my breakfast in
the open.
The sandwiches disposed of, began
to quarter the bench woodland back
and forth, searching for some indica-
tiOns of the railroad survey. In due
time found one of the location stakes,
and from its facing and the markings
on it, got the direction of the proposed
line and was able to trace it for some
distance along the bench. AS Dad
dy had said, it ran within few hun
dred yards of the Cinnabar claim, and
a short ~sidetrack would make his sug-
gestion perfectly feasible; our ore
could be shot into the cars with but
single handling.
From tracing the railroad survey, /
edged around to take another look at
the possibilities of the drainage tunnel
Daddy and 1 had figured on. Going
over the ground this second time, and
with some better knowledge of the diff
ficulties, it appeared that we must have
ridiculously underestimate the prob
able cost Pacing the distances care
fully, and guessing at the differences
in altitude by the heights of the trees,
saw that it wouldn't be safe to count
upon less than a mile of tunneling,
and this, in the solid porphyry of Old
Cinnabar, and in a situation remote
from the nearest base of supplies,
would run-nO, it wouldn't run; 1t
would fairly gallOp into money.
Was this what Fullerton meant to do
terly confident of his ability to drain
the Cinnabar was evident. But how
was it to be done? Would he, or his
hackers, be willing to spend a quar-
ter of a million or more, and the better
part of a years time, driving that
mile-lOng tunnel?
The longer l thought about it, the
larger the conviction grew that no
such expensive expedient was to be
resOrted to. Fullerton, or his hackers,
or both, knew some other and far
cheaper and more expeditions way of
getting rid of the water. Sitting on a
big rock that had in some former earth
CONFUSION tumbled from the broken
Cliffs above the mine, l gave the me-
chanical fraction of my brain Git was
small -fraction and sadly under-de-
velOped) free rein.
Two poSSibiIitioS cuuoacfad than
selves. A siphon, a big pipe, starting
at the bottom of the shaft and leading
out over the top and down the noun
tain to a point lower than the shaft
bottom, would, after it was once
started, automatically discharge, a
stream of its own bigness, whatever
that should be. But the cost of over
mile of such pipe was beyond nay
means; and if two six-ineh pumps
driven night and day had failed to
make any impression upon the flood
what could be expected of a siphon
which. in the nature of things, couldn't
be much bigger than an ordinary
street water main?
The Otner possibility was even less
hopeful. 1t was the driving of a short
tunnel. which Daddy and l might I'M
sdertake without additional help, from
the level of the high bench straight in
to an intersection with the mine shaft.
This estimated, might tap the water
at a point possibly twenty feet below
its present level in the shaft. Its sue
cess, as l saw at once, would depend
entirely upon the location and volume
of the underground lake, which was
supposed to be supplying the flood. If
this reservoir were shallow and high
in the mountain, the short tunnel
might drain it. If it were deep and
low, nothing would be accomplished