My well appeared full of water up to the top of the quicksand, but it was a perfect deception: the sand filled up the shaft in the course of three or four days, though emptied to the very bottom, which was a hard red clay.
Finding that more expence was incurred by the perpetual necessity for sending men down to empty out the sand, I resolved to adopt the old custom of lining the well with masonry; and having got all clear to the bed of clay, into which I sunk a stout frame, near a foot and a half deep, I went on with spirit for a whole day, in which near two yards of wall were built up: but, during the night, the balers went to sleep, and I found the whole immersed in the morning. As the sand and water were emptied, the draft was so great as to wash the lime from between the bricks, and I was compelled to take all out again. It then occurred to me to have bricks made in the form of the frustum of a pyramid, so as to fit exactly in a circle of two feet and a half in diameter internally, and of four feet externally. These were laid on the frame, which I now buried a full yard in the clay: between the bricks I put abundance of dry lime, rubbing them close together, and, with the clay, all the interval between the masonry and the wooden frame was filled up. Two workmen were employed all night; one in the well, who ladled the water from the four corners into a bucket, which the other raised to the surface: none worthy of notice got within the circular masonry, and I had the satisfaction, in about a week, to see the whole completed. Sufficient water found its way through the crevices, to keep me supplied, and the sand gave so little trouble, that, during a whole year that I occupied the premises, no clearance was necessary.
This digression may appear irrelevant to the subject; but I could not forbear giving the fact a place here, as it possibly may prove an useful guide to others who may be under similar disadvantages. It is curious, that a very large well, of about twelve feet diameter, was commenced at the same time by a brother officer, within a hundred yards of mine, which went on admirably, and was finished in a very short time. He had no quicksand opposed to his labors; on the contrary, his great difficulty lay in cutting through two strata of rock, from which only a few dribblets appeared while the well was lining with masonry; but, so soon as the rainy season set in, those rocks prevented the descent of the moisture, which, being by them directed to the well, rushed in such a violent manner against the masonry, as to force out many stones: creating a fissure which, in a few weeks, proved fatal to the whole of the work. A handsome well, with a rich spring issuing from a gravelly bottom, was thus ruined, and the station was again subjected to much inconvenience for what we often had in too liberal abundance.