Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1887 — The Gas Well at Francesville. [ARTICLE]

The Gas Well at Francesville.

Fifteen miles from the center of Rensselaer, as the crow flies, is the prospecting bore for gas at Francesville. By Thursday of last week the boring was down to the depth of 510 feet, and was making rapid progress, though owing to the presence of water not so fast as previously. *The success or failure of this well will go far towards determining the probabil- j ity of finding gas at Rensselaer, and is, for that reason, a.subjectof great interest in this place. A reporter of theWinaraae Republican who visited the well last week gives a description of the manlier of making the well, from which the j following is extracted: “The drill | is a “small” round piece of steel } weighing about fifteen hand raff : pr.nuds. with a steel bit It is worked by a 30-horse power steam engine and is raised by a 3-inch rope. The clx ill works something on the plan of an old fashioned well, such as the one by which the “old oaken bucket” is supposed to have been raised, only on a much larger scale. In “pumping out” a hollow iron tube with an apparatus, for closing, at. the bottom, is used. •