Sometimes this auger stem is connected with wooden rods, joined together with screws and sockets, new joints being added as the work proceeds; but more generally the connection is with a rope or cable of about one and a half inches in diameter. To this rope the auger stem is attached by a clamp and screw, that can be readily shifted as the progress of the work renders it necessary. The entire weight of these implements is from four to six hundred pounds. The power applied is sometimes that of two or three men working by means of a spring pole; but oftener a steam engine of from four to eight horse power. Midway between the well and the engine a post is planted, on which is balanced a working beam about sixteen feet in length: one end of this beam is attached to the crank of the engine, and the other to the implements in the well. The power is applied to raising the bit--the blow is produced by the fall of the same when relieved by the downward motion of the working beam. In the process of boring, the workman is seated over the well, and, by a transverse handle attached to the machinery just above the rope, turns the rope, and with it the bit, partially around, so that each stroke of the bit on the rock beneath is slightly across the cut that has preceded it. After the fore bit has proceeded about two feet, or until the work begins to clog with sand, it is withdrawn, and the next is inserted in its place, and the work is then finished as it goes by the last bit. The fragments of rock that are cut away descend to the bottom of the well in the form of sand, and are readily withdrawn by means of the sand pump. This is a simple copper tube about six feet in length, with a diameter something less than that of the well, and furnished at the lower end with a simple valve opening upward. This pump is let down into the well by a rope, and, when it reaches the bottom, is agitated for a few moments, when the sand is forced up through the valve, and thus withdrawn from the well, when the boring is again resumed. As the work proceeds, a register is kept by the judicious borer of the different strata passed through, and also of the veins of water and oil passed through, in order to the formation of an intelligent judgment in tubing the well. As might be supposed, this operation of descending amid the rocks is not without its difficulties and discouragements. Sometimes the bit breaks or becomes detached from the auger stem, leaving a fragment of hardened steel, or an entire bit, deep in the recesses of the rock. When the latter is the case, recourse is had to divers expedients, by means of implements armed with sockets and spring jaws, in order to entrap the truant bit. And it is marvellous what success generally attends these efforts to extract bits that are oftentimes two or three hundred feet below the surface. Sometimes, however, these efforts fail, and the well must be abandoned, with all the labor and anxiety that have been expended upon it.