Cape Breton's Magazine

where the water is coming in. You put a 6- inch diameter hole right down there. The wires will show you this vein crossing this way (1) and this one crossing that way ( • ); there's the place to put the hole (+) within here. If she's leaning a couple of feet one way or the other, you can't miss it. I've seen water that you can hear roar a fair piece away. One day I was digging at Five Island Lake when I stopped everything because I heard this awful pressure. The sound of air--you'd think it was a great big truck tire that had a leak in it, squeezing pressure. We hit water at 29 feet, and the next-door neighbour went 386 feet for a half a gallon a minute--and bad water at that! It was full of zinc. (How did you learn water divining?) Well, I tell you, I never knew anything about it till 1954. I was doing a well for a re? tired Mountie out West. I went 280 feet on each well before I hit the water. I could see this.vein down the road--I knew a lit? tle bit about following veins--but she was leaning away from me and I lost her. So he . said, "Geez, I should get out the divining rods"--and he jumped in the car and went down to the garage. He got me two steel wires and he forked them just right; he was smart, and a damned good head he was, too! He's dead now. I got some water--a- bout a half a gallon a minute, and there was a rusty seam right in the crank of the rock. You could see where the rock was cracked like that, and as I drilled through it, it opened and you could see the rust in it. So from then on I started using divining rods. Oh jeepers, yesJ I've seen an old couple down here in Her? ring Cove that sold their store, and they bought this place and they had a 335-foot hole that was just down in a ditch. The old lady said to me, "Can you find us wa? ter? We only got $700 in the bank." Re? tired, you feel sorry for them. I told them I'd check with the wires, that's a hard spot down there. I know. I've been there before and it's hard to get water. So I went down, and you know, it was only 5 feet away from what it was. I only went 60 feet and I got all kinds of water--5 gallons a minute. They were saving the wa? ter in the other, and the worst thing you can do is save water in a drill hole! Keep her pimping and keep the little railroads of water open all the time down below. You're taking the slime. There's a crank there that's been six hundred million years sitting there for you to punch a hole through it, and the rust on the shelf is going to fall off and come into where the water is lying, you know. It's very good to pump them out for about 72 hours . first. One night the phone rang and it was this friend of mine, O'Leary, from Halifax. He bought a small cabin down at Boutilier's Point, and he wanted a well, so I went down the next morning at 11 o'clock. We were down there a couple of hours and we searched the ground, and I found water in his driveway. On that one there, the road was going right up in front of the house to the main road. When I checked it, there was a vein running underground like this (I) and the other one running across this way (-), and there's the place to put the hole (+). He dug a hole, and he only went 11 feet and he got 25 gallons a minute. (Is water divining as accurate as modern methods, or more so?) I wouldn't put a hole anywhere unless I had them (divining wires). Oh jeepers, I wouldn't! Say your neighbour is living up the hill from you; you see his cesspool--in the summertime it's nice green grass all over the whole place that's well fertilized with the cess? pool! It's supposed to have some 160 feet drainage bed and 14 inches of gravel under? neath that. The water goes through that and gets down into the crank in the.rock and runs downhill--I'm supposed to drill a well for you downhill! Y9u're going to be drinking your neighbour's dirt! Now, they don't know that here. They don't know that in Halifax, or if they do, they don't tell you. They get in by friends through the well inspector or the cistern inspector. North Sydney Mall 116 King St, North Sydney, Nova Scotia • Climate Controlled Atmosphere • Plenty of Free Parking • Friendly Courteous Staff • 30 Stores and Services • Many Mall Activities A Place for Friends and Family" Serving Industrial Cape Breton and North Victoria Real Estate & Insurance ~ "If you're thinking of selling your home, give us a call." R.Hicl

Cape Breton's Magazine