Water Supply: the Present Practice of Sinking and Boring Wells / With Geological Considerations and Examples of Wells Executed

by Ernest Spon

The driving can thus be continued until the well has obtained the desired depth. Soon after another length has been added, the upper length should be turned round a little with the gas-tongs, to tighten the joints, which have a tendency to become loose from the jarring of the monkey. Care must be taken, after getting into a water-bearing stratum, not to drive through it, owing to anxiety to get a large supply. From time to time, and always before screwing on an additional length of tube, the well should be sounded, by means of a small lead attached to a line, to ascertain the depth of water, if any, and character of the earth which has penetrated through the holes perforated in the lower part of the well tube. As soon as it appears that the well has been driven deep enough, the pump is screwed on to the top and the water drawn up. It usually happens that the water is at first thick, and comes in but small quantities; but after pumping for some little time, as the chamber round the bottom of the well becomes enlarged, the quantity increases and the water becomes clearer.

When sinking in gravel or clay, the bottom of the well tube is liable to become filled up by the material penetrating through the holes; and before a supply of water can be obtained, this accumulation must be removed by means of the cleaning pipes.

The cleaning pipes are of small diameter, ¹⁄₂-inch externally, and the several lengths are connected together in the same way as the well tubes, by collars screwing on over the adjoining end of two pipes.

To clear the well, one cleaning pipe after another is lowered into the well, until the lower end touches the accumulation; the pipes must be held carefully, for if one were to drop into the well it would be impossible to get it out without drawing the well. A pump is then attached to the upper cleaning pipe by means of a reducing socket; the lower end of the cleaning pipe is then raised and held about an inch above the accumulation by means of the gas-tongs: water is next poured down the well outside the cleaning pipe, and, being pumped up through the cleaning pipe, brings up with it the upper portion of the accumulation; the cleaning pipe is gradually lowered, and the pumping continued until the whole of the stuff inside the well tube is removed. The pump is then removed from the cleaning pipe, and the cleaning pipes are withdrawn piece by piece; and finally the pump is screwed on to the upper end of the tube well, [Fig. 96], which is then in working order.

Fig. 96.

The tube being very small, is in itself capable of containing only a limited supply of water, which would be exhausted by a few strokes of the pump; the condition, therefore, upon which alone these tube wells can be effective, is that there shall be a free flow of water from the outside through the apertures into the lower end of the tube. When the stratum in which the water is found is very porous, as in the case of gravel and some sorts of chalk, the water flows freely; and a yield has been obtained in such situations as great and rapid as the pump has been able to lift, that is 600 gallons an hour. In some other soils, such as sandy loam, the yield in itself may not be sufficiently rapid to supply the pump; in such cases, the effect of constant pumping is to draw up with the water from the bottom a good deal of clay and sand, and so gradually to form a reservoir, as it were, around the foot of the tube, in which water accumulates when the pump is not in action, as is the case in a common well. In dense clays, however, of a close and very tenacious character, the American tube well is not applicable, as the small perforations become sealed, and water will not enter the tube. When the stratum reached by driving is a quicksand, the quantity of sand drawn up from the water will be so great, that a considerable amount will have to be pumped before the water will come up clear; and even in some positions, when the quicksand is of great extent, the effect of the pumping may be to injure the foundations of adjoining buildings on the surface of the ground.

The tube well cannot itself be driven through rock, although it might be used for drawing water from a subjacent stratum through a hole bored in the rock to receive it.

Subject to these conditions, these tube wells afford a ready and economical means for drawing water to the surface from a depth not exceeding 27 or 28 feet.