This kind of work required great skill and constant attention on the part of the workmen; more than one digging under the wheel was dangerous, and some were even mortally wounded by the splinters of stone; but their energy did not slacken for a moment by day nor night; by day, when the sun’s rays sent the thermometer up to 99 deg. on the calcined planes; by night, under the white waves of electric light, the noise of the pickaxe on the rock, the blasting and the machines, together with the wreaths of smoke scattered through the air, traced a circle of terror round Stony Hill, which the herds of buffaloes and the detachments of Seminoles never dared to pass.

In the meantime the work regularly advanced; steam-cranes speeded the carrying away of the rubbish; of unexpected obstacles there were none; all the difficulties had been foreseen and guarded against.

When the first month had gone by the well had attained the depth assigned for the time—­i.e., 112 feet.  In December this depth was doubled, and tripled in January.  During February the workmen had to contend against a sheet of water which sprang from the ground.  They were obliged to employ powerful pumps and apparatus of compressed air to drain it off, so as to close up the orifice from which it issued, just as leaks are caulked on board ship.  At last they got the better of these unwelcome springs, only in consequence of the loosening of the soil the wheel partially gave way, and there was a landslip.  The frightful force of this bricked circle, more than 400 feet high, may be imagined!  This accident cost the life of several workmen.  Three weeks had to be taken up in propping the stone revetment and making the wheel solid again.  But, thanks to the skill of the engineer and the power of the machines, it was all set right, and the boring continued.

No fresh incident henceforth stopped the progress of the work, and on the 10th of June, twenty days before the expiration of the delay fixed by Barbicane, the well, quite bricked round, had reached the depth of 900 feet.  At the bottom the masonry rested upon a massive block, thirty feet thick, whilst at the top it was on a level with the soil.

President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly congratulated the engineer Murchison; his cyclopean work had been accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.

During these eight months Barbicane did not leave Stony Hill for a minute; whilst he narrowly watched over the boring operations, he took every precaution to insure the health and well-being of his workmen, and he was fortunate enough to avoid the epidemics common to large agglomerations of men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe exposed to tropical influence.