Year: 1875

Max Adelcr has the following Thev
have been boring an artesian well out at the
iron foundry, and for some time the work
seemed to go along very nicely The bor-
ing was done with two-inch auger fixed TO
the end of an iron rod, which was twisted
around by wheel worked by two men.
One day, after they had gone down good
many feet, they tried TO pull the rod out. but
it would not come. They were afraid to
use much force, lest the auger should como
off and stay in the hole, and so. as the bor-
ing went along well enough, they concluded
to keep on turning, and to trust to the force
OF the water, when they struck IT, TO drive
the loose dirt up from the hole When
they had gone down about three hundred
and fifty feet, they began TO think il queer
that there were no signs Of water but they
bored hundred feet farther, and one day.
just as they were beginning on another hun
dred, there was an excitement at Murphy's


Murphy lived next door to the foundry.
and on the day in question his boy came run
ming into the house and told him to come
into the garden quick. for there was some
kind of an extraordinary animal with a
sharp nose, burrowng out of the ground
Murphy concluded that it must be either a
potato bug or a grasshopper that had been
ho'Nh'h ~ AiiN nIiih@f anu ut ltNh NNl
bottle of bug poison to drop on it when it
came up. When Murphy reached the spot,
there was some kind Of creature slowly
pushing its way up through the sod. Its
nose seemed to resemble a sharp point like
steel. Murphy dropped some poison on it,
but 1t didn't appear to mind the stuff, but
kept slowly creeping up from the ground.
Then Murphy felt it, and was astonished to
find that it felt exactly like the end OF
fork prong. lie sent the boy in to call Per-
kns aud the rest of the neighbors Pretty
soon large crowd collected, and by this
time the animal had emerged to the extent
of a couple of inches


Everybody was amazed TO see that it
looked exactly like the end of a large auger.
and two or three timid men were SO scared
at the idea Of such thing actually growing
out OF the carth that they got over the fence
and left. Perkins couldn't account for it,
but he suggested that maybe somebody
might have planted a gimlet there and it
had taken root and blossomed out into an
auger but he admitted that he never heard
of such thing before.


Murphy said if that kind of thing would
work he probably might gointo the business
regularly, and raise axes by planting hatch
cts and guns by sowing pistols. The ex-
uiuchlcht hlctthstu 50 titt lhe men WHO were
boring the artesan well knocked off and
came over to see the phenomenon. 1t was
noticed that as soon as they stopped work
the auger ceased to grow, and when they
arrived they looked at it minute, and one
Of them said


Bill, do you recognize that auger 2"


d" | think do" said Bill.


Well, Bill, you go and unhitch that
wheel from the other end of the rod"


Bill did so aud then the other man asked
the crowd TO take hold of the anger and pull.
They did, and out came four hundred and
fifty feet of iron rod. That auger had slid
off to the side and turned upward, and came
to the surface in Murphys garden. Then
the artesian well was abandoned aud Brown,
the foundry man, bought a steam pump and
began to get water from the river