NEW WELL BORING AND PUMPING MACHINERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 12, 15 April 1871, Page 16

NEW WELL BORING AND PUMPING MACHINERY.

The iollowing appeared in a late num. ber of " Chambers' Journal," which we recommend to the attention of our mining readers: —A particularly interesting paper "On Well-boring and Pumping Machinery," by Mr W. Mather, of Manchester, has been read at a meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; and as the invention therein described is of great utility, we gladly give a brief account of it. A steam-engine, a flat hemp rope, a few borng-tools, lifts, and grapnels of various forms, constitute the working apparatus. A hole is bored in the ground in the usual way ; then the boring-tool, attached to the end of the rope, is let down, and made to give a succession of blows on the bottom, being turned slightly round between every stroke. In this way, the bottom, whether clay, gravel, chalk, or ruck of any kind, is broken and penetrated: the tool is wound swiftly up; the lifting bucket is hooked on and speedily brings up the loosened material. There are various contrivances for meeting contingencies ; but a general idea of the method of working may be gathered from this brief description. It is a method ingenious in its simplicity, and very effective, and much more expeditious than the practice of using iron rods, the weight of which at great depths becomes enormous. It was by Mather's machinery that the boring of Middlesborough, .which discovered the existence of large beds of rock salt and of brine springs in that part of the Vale of Tees, was effected. This boring is 18 inches diameter, and 1312 feet deep, through sandstone, limestone, gypsum, and marl. The time occupied was 540 days, and the number of men employed, including a smith to sharpen the cutters, never exceeded six. At Norwich a well 24 inches and 18 inches diameter was sunk 1184 feet, mostly through chalk and flints, at the rate of 1 foot 11 inches per day. At other places in England, on the continent, and in India, similar operations have been carried cut. A boring to explore for petroleum is going on in Assam. The Public Works Department in India have three of the machines in use, and many a thirsty town and village will ere long rejoiqe in abundance of water. Hull affords a striking example of what may be accomplished by deep boring. Three holes were sunk to a depth of 400 feet, and tapped a supply of excellent water, which mounts to the surface, and delivers a copious flow of two million gallons every day for the use of the inhabitants, without pumping. . The machinery can also be used for boring for minerals, as it will bring up a specimen ' core' of every stratum through which it passes. An offer has been made to bore a hole three feet diameter to a depth of four thousand feet in some part of Surrey, to test the theory of deep lying beds of coal beneath that country ; and in the neighborhood of Moscow, a boring, intended to be three thousand feet deep, is now carried on,'night and day, with a view to a permanent supply of good water.