Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1894 — TENSIVE CAVE-INS. [ARTICLE]

TENSIVE CAVE-INS.

Near W nitewater, Kas., Friday, an area of forty by ninety feet sunk to a depth of twenty-eight feet, and when a man was let down into the hole his weight alone sunk it nearly three feet more. About the same time an area of seventyfive feet square sunk at Plumgrave a depth of thirty-five feet, the sliding-in carrying in a threshing machine and separator with it. Water poured into the latter hole from under ground till it is filled nearly to the top, but the hole at Whitewater is still dry, though it is supposed that the caved-in earth is resting upon a vast body of water. The places are some seven or eight miles apart. At Annelin, several miles from Whitewater, there were several small cave-ins, ranging in depth from six feet to forty feet. The theories are various, but none of them, so far, is scientific. Not long since a man was digging a-well in the vicinity of Plumgrave, and when he had reached a depth of twenty-six feet the drill shot into an apparent vacuum and could not be recovered. All the cave-ins, great and small, extend in a crooked, stream-like course a distance of about twenty-four miles.