Chinese Boring Rods.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 204, 7 October 1873, Page 7

Chinese Boring Rods.

The Mount Ida Chronicle has the following : —“ If the ancients equalled, or even excelled- us in what we have called above, ‘ modern thought,’ the present era may very well be given credit for unexampled powers of practical development. Yet it is of interest just now to note that one of the best modes of practical boring comes from China. A jumper of considerable weight and length is suspended and worked by a rope passed over a wheel; the twisting and untwisting of the rope gives the necessary rotatory motion. The jumper is hollow, and is so contrived to receive and retain the dehm, by means of valves opening inwards. This mode has been adopted, with very little alteration, for blasting rock. Ordinary field boring, as conducted in prospecting for coal, is a simple though rather tedious process. It is done by a chisel of an indefinite length, from 20ft. to 1200 ft. or more, the continuous length of which is formed by pieces of iron about Oft. long. The chisel at first, and for a number of fathoms, is lifted by the hands, until the weight becomes inconvenient to lift directly, when a lever of the first power is introduced. The chisel, or rod, is suspended from the end of it, and the workmen exert their power at the other, while the person in charge turns the chisel by a cross piece of wood, termed a brace-head, attached to it. The process of cutting is thus performed by raising the chisel, turning it, and allowing it to fall by its own gravity ; and the strata cut is proved by introducing for the lowest division of the chisel a hollow tube, with a valve in the bottom. When it is forced down into the bore the valve opens, and receives the broken stuff produced by the action of the chisel, which, when brought to the surface, is washed and preserved in samples, and delivered by the borer to his employer, in proof of the journal he renders. The writer from whom we take this description says, that ‘to perform this description of work well great care and attention are required, and though there are frequent failures, yet a skilful workman renders a very correct description of the strata he boros through, and generally from a few well-selected bores a good general idea can be formed of a field and what it contains.’ ”