How to drill a well?

Old northerners have always followed an old adage when digging wells: choose a place with dense Artemisia argyi bushes before digging wells. It is said that drilling wells under Artemisia argyi pond is not only prosperous, but also delicious. In fact, before drilling a well, the driller did not know how deep the groundwater was from the ground. He relied on the wormwood on the ground as a guide, and he didn't know how many days it would take to drill to pump water. But the depth of the well is usually more than three feet. In the past, the tools used by the ancients to drill wells were called butterfly cones. The cone head is shaped like an ice shovel now, and there are two mud buckets shaped like butterfly wings on the upper part. During drilling, the cone head will also bring sediments into the mud bucket and then pull them out of the ground for cleaning. The person in charge of the conical well is called the well builder. However, only the well digger can't complete the task of drilling wells, because most of the wells drilled on the plain are soil layers, and the wells are deep and easy to collapse when soaked in water, so it is necessary to drill wells while going down. Where there were conditions before, the surface water was shallow, and temporary wells were also made of stones and bricks. Most of these wells are round. However, when drilling a large drinking water well, wood is used as the well radius. Generally, when drilling a well, the wellhead area should be slightly larger, so that a layer of lining is embedded in the well, which is the radius of the well. However, it is not as some people think that the drilling radius will gradually decrease after completion, but it must be carried out at the same time as drilling. A craftsman whose radius is a well is called a carpenter. Good radial material is generally larch board, and miscellaneous wood can be without larch. The radius of the well is hexagonal, the frame is reasonable and the support is strong. The diameter and length of well radius are called dense in jargon, for example, 6' 6 is called 6' dense and 8' 8 is called 8' dense. Carpenters saw the selected wood into thick plates, carved mortises and tenons on both ends of the plates, commonly known as tenons and tenons, and then fixed the plates piece by piece according to mortises and tenons. In addition, there are several technicians to do manual work. The mechanics work one after another under the command of the oil well workers! Cone! Cone! When the mud in the mud bucket is full, remove it by force. At this point, the carpenter began to lower the radius of the well into the well layer by layer on the ground, and then tamped the radius of the well with a heavy hammer. So back and forth, until the well comes out, the digger can breathe a sigh of relief.

In the past, blind drilling lost a lot, and the radius of the well had to be completely blind, regardless of labor losses. What well builders fear most is quicksand at the bottom of the well. This kind of well, there is only sand flow at the bottom of the well, and there is no water, so the drilling of the well will be declared a failure. But only with water, the task of drilling wells has not been finally completed, and more complicated processes are yet to come!

The water is at the bottom of the well and needs to be lifted, but how to lift the water? This is when the pulley comes in handy. In fact, the so-called pulley is just composed of a crank, a drum, a well rope, a long shaft and two supports. The crank of the windlass is a naturally bent piece of wood. I found an old elm tree in the north, took a good look at a branch, cut it down and processed it a little. Commonly known as "winch handle" (later also used iron winch handle). Put it on a drum and fix it firmly with iron hoops. Some windlasses are circular rollers made by carpenters, and some are made from local materials. The method is to use a thick trunk with a long shaft in the middle, install the handle of the hoist, and support the hoist on the wellhead with two brackets or wheels of the old big iron car. This is what people used to call a "well bed". I think the phrase "the foot of the bed is as bright as a thread" in Li Bai's Silent Night Thinking refers to the well bed, not the bed where we sleep now. Tie an iron chain or a long rope on the pulley, the length depends on the distance between the pulley and the water surface, and tie a willow pot at the bottom of the rope, so that people can draw water by shaking the pulley.

So what is a willow pot? In the past, there were no foreign iron barrels in the north, so people used wooden barrels to carry water, which was not only complicated in manufacturing process, but also easy to be damaged. There is a Kannikin's law, that is, any problem in the system will affect the overall effect. In fact, it also tells people from the side that the barrel is so damaged. Although there were iron drums in the later period, they were precious at that time. Because it's MINUS 30-40 degrees in winter in the north, there is ice everywhere near the well and at the bottom of the well. The iron drum is afraid of touching, and it hurts when it is flat. So people used the existing materials to invent the wicker jar according to local conditions. It is woven with thin wicker, which can be seen everywhere and is convenient for collection. Basket weaving with wicker is a local specialty. Therefore, people weave wicker into a vessel that can hold water. Because it looks like a crock after weaving, people named it "Liu Gang". Some people regard it as a fight in a well, also known as a "willow bucket". Liu can is really a perfect person. After being soaked in water, it expands and expands out of the gap in the middle of wicker. Sometimes it is used to draw water, even it is watertight, and it is resistant to corrosion and bumps. When it comes to hard things, they are flexible, durable and economical. Therefore, weaving willow cans is also a great historical invention.