. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. fts the wholeapparatus a man standing over the well gives it a half turn, andthe spade falls two feet, striking the ground a heavy blow, thebeam allows the shaft to fall upon it, pick it up and raise it again,the man gives another half turn, the spade falls again, and so onfor hours with ex-traordinary rapid-ity, the spade fall-ing perhaps thirtytimes a is known asthe free fall sys-tem, from the Ger-man Freifall. Af-ter a while theearth is extractedby means of a
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. fts the wholeapparatus a man standing over the well gives it a half turn, andthe spade falls two feet, striking the ground a heavy blow, thebeam allows the shaft to fall upon it, pick it up and raise it again,the man gives another half turn, the spade falls again, and so onfor hours with ex-traordinary rapid-ity, the spade fall-ing perhaps thirtytimes a is known asthe free fall sys-tem, from the Ger-man Freifall. Af-ter a while theearth is extractedby means of a co-lossal shell-auger,and the iron tubeis lowered intoplace. The spades areof all shapes andsizes, and so far allis plain by and by ac-cidents happen. Spades break, tubes collapse under the enormous pressurenecessary to force them into place, steel ropes and chains giveAvay and precipitate the wdiole apparatus into the well, or theapparatus gets twisted or broken and jams fast perhaps athousand feet below the surface. Or perhaps even a wrenchor a heavy bolt falls into the w^ell—quite enough to prevent. A Fountain at Baku. 222 ALL THE RUSSIAS the free fall from working-. Then the fun begins—notthat the well-owner regards it as fun at all. But the businessof picking up these things seems to me an intoxicating that your accident has happened perhaps 1,500 feetunderground, in a tube perhaps a foot in diameter, perhapsonly six inches, for, as the well goes deeper, its diameter de-creases. You do not know what the accident is—you onlyknow that something, perhaps everything, has gone to smashdown there. Or you may know that you have a ton of broken,twisted iron jammed tight in the narrow iron tube, with aquarter of a mile of wire rope or chain piled up pell-mell on thetop of it. Your business is to get it all out—and the oil-borerdoes get it all out. In his workshop are laid side by side scoresof surgical instruments—tweezers, pincers, forceps, pro
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
