Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1890 — STRANGE PHENOMENON. [ARTICLE]

STRANGE PHENOMENON.

Earthquake or There was an explosion of natural gas in Flat Rock, two miles south of .Waldron, at 9 o’clock. The flame was seen for two and a half miles at first. The gas is now burning -for half a mile along the creek. The creek is forty feet wide and now dry. The explosion is supposed to have been caused by a fire cn-the island in Plat Rock. Gas was unknown there before. There js intense excitement. J. H. Lowe, who iives on the farm where the explosion occurred, says he heard a terrific report and felt the earth quivering beneath his feet. He went toward the graveyard and was soon confronted by a sheet of flame two hundred feet high. Then fifty or more fountains of fire burst from the earth. These were interspersed with six or eight active geysers. The river bed was torn to pieces and the huge fissures were receiving the river’s water’ Sheets of flames swept over the water, and a crater covering an area of about one acre was quickly converted into a huge hole, from which a continued roaring and rumbling noise proceeded. Within the bend of the river and for an eighth of a mile along the stream great rents are in the-earth and in tbe river bed. At the bend of the river, the bank, which is of limestone. is a fractiure a quarter of a mile long. Stones the size of a house have been hurled from their places. The graveyard was shaken up, the skeletons of- the dead being distinctly seen in the fractures of the earth. Gas flows freely from tbe entire surface of ten acres. Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of the explosion. Many people contend that it was a spontaneous combustion of natur al gas. Others think that the upheaval was volcanic. Mr. Lowe, who got to the scene before the gas • ignited, is sure that it was volcanic. Inhabitants in the locality became wild with excitement and many left their homes. Within the last eighteen months there have beep thirteen gas wells sunk vn the locality of the grave-yard, and while each has some gas, none have been gushers. ”7', - rl , ■

Further particulars are given by an aiiapolis news correspondent on the 12th. He says: The'News staff correspondent dispatched to the scene of Indiana’s greatest natural gas phenomenon, found that none of the extraordinary reports concern ■ ing the affair have been overdrawn. Tefa acres of the farm of Thomas Haban, late member of the Legislature, three miles south of Waldron, have been destroyed for farming purposes. Great holes have been blown in the earth; F'at Rock creek, running through the land, has been blocked in and its waters turned up stream. Birds, snakes, Rabbits and fish in profusion are dead, and the fish, thoroughly cooked, are thickly scattered through the accumulated waters.

All this was caused by the upheava noted Monday. A log fire was blazing in the midst of the ten acres, when, without warning, the earth belched forth flame, great rocks and trees were hurled skyward, a part of the adjoining graveyard was torn off and reduced to dust, and the waters of Flat Rock were converted to foam and steam. A vast pocket of natural gaajisdfir or near the logfirehad exploded. The gas had accumulated apparently under the creek bed, held in by a thick stratum of bluish clay,and fed from the great depths below, whence the somewhat meagre natural gas supply of Shelby County is obtained. The explosion threw great waves of the blue clay into the air and left where there had been yawning caravans, some of them big enough to hold a house. Through the caravans and holes the gas continued to pour after the explosion. It was afire and blazed fiercely up above the trees. .The gas escaped under such pressure that the flame was forced as high tops at ti mes before the flames could take hold of it. The flames at times would rise a hundred yards. This continued all Monday afternoon and night. To-day three thousand spectators are witnesses of the phenomenon. The fire has been extinguished, but the gas under reduced pressure still escapes. Your reporter put his nostrils to a crevasse from which he knew gas was escaping (because he had lighted and extinguished it) and was unable to detect the faintest odor. In this respect the gas is like Pennsylvania natural gas. The general conviction is that no other agency than gas could have produced the effect noted. Neighbors who saw the flying debris and heard the roaring noise say they thought for the moment that a cyclone was doing the.mischief, and many hurried with their chil«. dren to places of shelter. One of the marvelous results is the effect upon the water. Not a drop of Flatrock’s flood has gone below the cavern since the upheaval. The great caverns have taken in the current, and a wild foaming Niagara is created on the edges of the abysses as the volume of gas comes in contact with the falling water. At noon of the 12th the holes were about full of water, and the creek began to deepen with the back water. The water waaeven flowing up stream, but will douotless cut a new channel and flow otf its downward course. Across the river from the Hoban farm are fissures in the earth, and the explosion, in its scope, took in many more acres besides the ten where its damage was greatest. In these every living thing apparently was killed by the explosion, and the fish if not killed outright in the first place were killed by the blazing gas on the river’s surface. Few if any graves in the cemetery were, undisturbed.

The excitement over the natural gas ex,plosion still prevails throughout Shelby county, and thousands of people are flocking to the scene. It is now discovered that the soil for many miles around is impregnated with gas, and by piercing the soil with a stick the fluid can be ignited and a blare produced large enough to cause con* siderable illumination. In Van BureiS township, twehtjvfour miles north, the gas, has broken into the water wells, and the use of water frpm them has been abandoned. Some of the farmers have cased the wells and are using the gas from them for fueL