To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 10 January 1852]
I suffer from the serious misfortune of a well 325 feet deep. It is worked by two buckets, and a chain, which, from its great length, is necessarily very heavy. Would a wire rope (galvanised) answer?1 This, I presume, might be tight and thin; it would have to carry, at each end, a strong and heavy bucket, holding 12 gallons. The rope would have to work over, and, I presume, once quite round, a wheel only 14 inches in diameter. Would any of your correspondents have the charity to give the result of any actual experience of light wire rope; such would be of value, probably to others, as well as to myself.2 C. R. D.
Footnotes
Bibliography
EB: The Encyclopædia Britannica. A dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. 11th edition. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1910–11.
Summary
Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle whether they have experience with light wire rope instead of chain in drawing water buckets from deep wells. Describes the problem of his own well with its 325 foot chain.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1470
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Gardeners’ Chronicle
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 2, 10 January 1852, p. 22
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1470,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1470.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5
