The Diamond Bock Drill.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3582, 19 June 1880, Page 2

The Diamond Bock Drill.

This rock drill is one of the full-sized machines described in the Parliamentary papers. It is complete, with a 12 b.p. locomotive boiler for wood or coal, one of Tangye's No. 3 double-acting pumps, and extra fittings, and it is capable of boring a core of one inch and seven-eights to a depth of fifteen hundred feet. It was used in Queensland for a short time, and put down a bore of twelve hundred feet without accident. In appearance it resembles an ordinary locomotive boiler upon waggon -wheels, with the drill machinery bracketed on to the front of the boilder. It is very compact and portable, and can be worked vertically, horizontally, and at different. angles, without special bedding or setting. In fact, all that is necessary to set themachine in motion is to take out the horses, block the Wheels, and get up steam, and the boring is simply a process of investigating the strata of the earth by means of a rerolving disc with diamonds, which the hardest known rocks or quartz cannot resist, under pressure from the machine above upon the hollow rods to which the disc is attached. The core of rock, metal, &c, is contained inside the rods in a solid circular mass, and it can be broken off at the length of a rod (ten feet), or at any lesser length, and brought to the surface at cny time for examination The boring-rods are of the best rolled iron and the core-barrel is bored the whole ten feet, inside »nd out. The^core-lifter is screwed into the core barßte and the diamond-bit or disc is then screwed int< the core-lifter, the bit proceeding the whole. The rods are lowered and lifted by means of a winch-barrel, bolted on to the top of the machine, and connected to the engine* shaft by means of a spur pic'on. When the rois are lifted from the bottom of the bore, a close ribbed taoer spring, fitted to the core-lifter, slips clown over the core and grips it firmly, bringing the whole of the sold core in the core-barrel to the surface. As much as twenty feet per day can be bored by the machines itith ease, and artesian wells can also be sunk by them. The weight of the machine, exolu--BJTe of the boring rods, is 4| tons. -