Remarkable Eruption from a Well

Last autumn the Vacuum Oil Company of this city began the work of drilling for salt at LeRoy. State geologists had given the opinion that there was a vein, and several hundred dollars (about $1,500 it is said) were raised in that village to assist the Rochester parties, it being expected that the same vein would be reached there as had been reached in Wyoming, only much nearer the surface. On Friday, about half-past three o’clock in the afternoon, when the well had been bored to a depth of about four hundred and fifty feet, a strong vein of gas was struck, which blew the tools out of the well, and rushed out with such force as to extend to the fire in the coal stove, about ten feet distant from the mouth of the well. The house in which the men were working took fire, and the destruction of the derrick seemed inevitable, when the rush of the gas from the well gave way to a gush of water, which put the fire out, and was so strongly impregnated with sulphur that it could be smelled a distance of nearly half a mile. For some time afterward there were alternate rushes of gas and gushes of water from the well, each holding its own for about a minute and a half. About six o’clock the water was spouting to a height of about sixty feet in the air, and was strongly impregnated with salt; while at half-past seven o’clock it had reached an altitude of 110 feet. The bore of the well is eight inches, but the casing takes up about an inch, thus leaving an opening of about seven inches, from which the water still gushes with such force that a large blacksmith’s anvil, placed over the hole, was blown directly out.–Rochester (N.Y.) Express.