Rural Hygiene

by Henry N. Ogden

In some soils, not rock, it is necessary to keep the drill going in order to churn up or soften the earth so that the pipe may be lowered. The churned-up soil is removed by a sand pump, which is a hollow tube with a flap valve at the lower end opening inwards and a hook on the upper end. By alternately drilling, pipe-driving, and pumping the wet material, length after length of pipe can be forced into the ground until water of a satisfactory quantity is reached. Very often a jet of water is used to wash out the dirt from the interior of the well instead of a sand pump. As shown by Fig. 32 water under pressure is forced down the small pipe A which runs to the bottom of the well. The large pipe B can then, as the sand is loosened by the water, be driven down by the one thousand-pound hammer M. The water and sand together flow up in the space outside the small pipe and inside the large pipe, overflowing through the waste pipe W. This type of well has been very largely used throughout New York State; on Long Island, in connection with the Brooklyn Water-supply; along the Erie Canal, in connection with the Barge Canal Work, and in New York City, in connection with building foundations.

Fig. 32.—Sinking a well by means of a water-jet.

Sometimes, when a shallow dug well does not furnish the required quantity of water, the amount of water can be increased by driving pipe wells down into water strata below the one from which the dug well takes its supply, so that water will rise to the strata penetrated by the dug well. This has been done to increase the public supplies at Addison and Homer in New York State. Unfortunately, much uncertainty exists in the matter of the yield of driven wells, and an individual undertakes a deep well usually with great reluctance on account of the expense involved and the uncertainty of successful results. In level ground, conditions are not likely to vary in the same valley, so that if one well is proved successful, the probabilities are that wells in the vicinity will be equally so, and yet, at some places, the contrary has proved to be true.

One may estimate the cost of putting down four-inch driven wells as approximately one dollar per foot besides the cost of the pipe, which will be about fifty cents per foot. The cost of one-and-one-half-inch pipe would be considerably less than fifty cents, the cost of driving varying not so much with the size of the pipe as with the soil conditions. The writer recently paid ninety dollars for driving two one-and-one-half-inch wells to a depth of about one hundred feet, the above cost including that of the pipe; the soil conditions, however, were very favorable. In Ithaca the cost of driving one-and-one-quarter-inch pipe is fifteen cents per lineal foot up to about fifty feet deep with the cost of the pipe fifteen cents per foot additional. Below fifty feet deep the cost increases, since the labor and time required for pulling up the pipe is largely increased, and at the same time the rate at which the pipe will drive is notably diminished.

The question of pumping from wells will be considered in a later chapter, together with methods of construction and operation.

Springs.

Springs should be the most natural method of securing water-supply for a detached house, since no expense is involved except that of piping the water to the building. In Europe, spring water-supplies have been greatly developed in furnishing water for large cities. Vienna, for example, with its population of nearly two millions, obtains its water-supply from springs in the Alps mountains, and many smaller cities do likewise.

But in this country springs have been little used for water-supplies, partly because of the uncertain quantity furnished and partly because of difficulty in acquiring title to the water rights. If an individual, however, has on his farm, or within reach, a spring furnishing a continuous supply of water, it would seem quite absurd not to make use of such a Heaven-sent blessing. Care must be taken always that a spring is not contaminated by surface drainage, and for this reason, as with shallow wells, the wall surrounding the inclosed spring should be extended above the ground and made impervious to water for at least six feet below the surface. In some cases it may be wise to convert an open spring into an underground one, putting a roof over all and then covering with earth and sod. Figure 33 shows a type suggested by the French engineer, M. Imbeaux.