Opinion of the Court. The herein-described process of sinking wells where no rock is to be penetrated, viz.: by driving or forcing down a rod to and into the water under ground, and withdrawing it and inserting a tube in its place to draw the water through, substantially as herein de scribed. The process of constructing wells by driving or forcing an instrument into the ground until it is projected into the water without removing the earth upward, as it is in boring, substantially as herein described. The attempts judicially to enforce the rights claimed under this patent have met with determined resistance, and given rise to extensive litigation, in the course of which the original and reissued patents have been subjected to great scrutiny and criticism. The first reported case is that of Andrews v. Carman, 13 Blatchford, 307, decided by Judge Benedict in 1876. That has been followed by Andrews v. Wright, before Judges Dillon and Nelson, 13 Off. Gaz. 969; Hine v. Wahl, before Judge Gresham; Andrews v. Cross, before Mr. Justice Blatchford, then Circuit Judge, 19 Blatchford, 294; Green v. French, before Judge Nixon, 11 Fed. Rep. 591; Andrews v. Creegan, before Judge Wheeler, 19 Blatchford, 113; Andrews v. Long, before Judge McCrary, 2 McCrary, 577; the present case before Judge Shipman, 15 Fed. Rep. 109; and Andrews v. Cone, and Andrews v. Hovey, heard before Judges Love, Shiras, and Nelson, 5 McCrary, 181. The case of Hine v. Wahl was argued in this court on appeal at October Term, 1882, the decree below being affirmed by a divided court. The patent has been sustained against all defences made in the cases just mentioned, except in those of Andrews v. Cone and Andrews v. Hovey, 5 McCrary, 181, which are nov pending on appeal in this court. The extent of this litigation attests at least the utility of the process supposed to be described in the patent, as it shows and measures the extent of the public demand for its use. This is further shown by the statement of one of the complainants in the present cause when examined as a witness, who says Cpinion of the Court. that large numbers of wells constructed according to the process described in the patent are in use in the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, and most of the Western States, as well as in New Jersey, and probably in every state in the Union; and that from estimates made by agents, welldrivers, and others having an opportunity of knowledge in the matter, it is believed that the number of driven wells throughout the United States is somewhere between five hundred thousand and a million. The wells in general use prior to the date of this patent were of two kinds: 1st, the open, common, dug well, usually walled or boarded or otherwise lined, from which the water which collected in the well was usually lifted by means of a bucket and windlass, or by a pump; and 2d, artesian wells, bored frequently to a great depth by means of drills, chisels, augers, and other such tools, whereby the opening was made into the earth to the water supply. In both kinds the process used was to make an excavation, removing the material through the opening. It was usual in making artesian bored wells to drive down a wooden or iron pipe, open at both ends, having a sharp edge around the circumference of its lower extremity, the earth being taken out from within it. As the driving proceeds, and after it reaches the rock, chisels, drills, and other tools are used to disintegrate the rock, which is taken to the surface through the tube so driven. In the latter case, the tube is inserted into the hole bored for the purpose of preventing the caving in of the sides of the opening. Through that tube the water is drawn, if necessary, by a pump, or otherwise flows in consequence of pressure from the head. The manner in which the water is obtained and supplied, by means of these two descriptions of wells, is thus stated, as we suppose correctly, by an expert witness in this case. He says: "Water is supplied to open dug wells only by the force of gravity, and, when the water is pumped from them by the ordinary suction pump, the pressure of the atmosphere is the same on the surface of the water in the well as it is upon the water in the earth surrounding it, and the result is, that Opinion of the Court. the water in the well itself, being in free space, is more readily forced by the pressure of the atmosphere into the suction pipe of the pump than the surrounding water, which is retarded by friction through the earth, and in consequence the continued operation of the pump soon exhausts the water in the well, which supply can only be replenished by the action of gravity, the pressure of the atmosphere to retard its flow into the well being equal to and counterbalancing the pressure exerted by the atmosphere upon the surface of the water in the earth, and the operation of the pump has no effect upon the water in the surrounding earth to force it into the well; hence the supply to the open dug well is due to and produced only by the action of gravity. "In the artesian well the same principles govern in regard to the means of supply, when they are not flowing wells, but in consequence of such wells being usually inserted down into rock or like substance until they meet with open fissures in the rock, through which water flows more freely and readily than it does through ordinary compacted earth, sand, &c., which form the water-bearing strata above the rock, a much larger quantity of water is obtained therefrom in proportion to their diameter than is usually obtained from the dug well, unless, as in some cases, the dug wells are carried down into a rock stratum and strike a similar seam in the rock. When artesian wells are flowing wells, the generally received opinion is, that their supply of water comes from a water-bearing stratum lying beneath a stratum practically impervious to water, but which lower stratum extends beyond and crops out at the surface of the earth at a greater or less distance from the well itself, (often many miles away,) and at a considerably higher elevation than the surface of the earth at the well." The same witness describes the invention, which he supposes to be embodied in the driven well and covered by the patent in suit, as follows: "I understand the invention to be founded upon the discovery by Colonel Green, that if a pipe which is air-tight throughout its length, except at its upper end and at or near its lower end, where are openings for the admission of water, be inserted VOL. CXXII-4 Opinion of the Court. into the earth, down and into a water-bearing stratum, the pipe within the water-bearing stratum being surrounded and in close contact with the earth, and having a pump of any ordinary construction attached by an air-tight connection to its upper end, thus forming a well, air-tight from its upper end, into and below the surface of the water in the earth, that upon operating the pump so attached and removing the pressure of the atmosphere from the well, the pressure of the atmosphere through the earth upon the surface of the water within the earth would force the water into the body of the well with a velocity due to the pressure of the atmosphere, and that the supply of the water to the well directly from the earth surrounding it would be continuous and lasting, so long as water was contained in the stratum of earth with which the lower end of the pipe was in communication, and that the water contained in that stratum could be made directly tributary to the well without regard to the distance to which said water-bearing stratum might extend. In other words, that unlike the previously known open wells, either dug or bored, into which the water from the surrounding earth was forced by the action of gravity alone, he could control the delivery of water to a well by this pressure of the atmosphere, which he discovered acted as effectually, through the earth, to force water from the earth into a well from which the pressure of the atmosphere had been removed, as if no earth existed above the surface of the water. "To utilize this discovery he proposed a method of making a well by simply driving a tube down through the earth into a water-bearing stratum, by which means he secured a close contact of the lower end of his tube with the earth of the water-bearing stratum." The differences between the wells previously in common use and the driven wells are stated by the same witness as follows: "The distinguishing characteristics of a driven well, as it differs from the dug well, is, that when the pressure is relieved from the interior of the tube which itself forms the body of the well, not only does the force of gravity act to supply it Opinion of the Court. with water directly from the earth, but there being no intervening body of water between the wall of the well itself and the earth surrounding it, upon which the atmosphere can act directly and with greater effect to force it into the well (as it can and does in the open well), the water is supplied directly to it from the earth surrounding it in a direct inverse ratio to its distance from the well, and the friction of the water through the earth being directly as the square of its velocity, as the distance from the well increases the water moves very much slower than it does immediately next to the well itself; but the area of the source of supply being increased exactly in the ratio of the square of its distance from the well, and the friction being increased exactly as the square of the velocity (in any given stratum), the one exactly counterbalancing the other, it follows that, from natural laws, the surface of the water in the earth surrounding the well is and must be maintained practically at a given level; whereas, in the open well, supplied by gravity only, the water in the earth inclines from the natural surface of the stratum in the earth to the bottom of the well, the angle of that decline decreasing as the supply is taken from the well, and, unless pumping is stopped and time allowed for a resupply, the lowering of the water in the earth extends to a continually increasing distance and a longer time is required to obtain the original quantity in the well, while the supply to the driven well is continuous and steady and practically inexhaustible, the supply in a given time being proportioned in any given soil to the size of the pipe forming the well, having openings proportionate to its size, different wells varying in the supply according to the nature of the soil in which they are inserted, but remaining virtually constant at all times in the same soil. It is not claimed, nor is it a fact, that water can be pumped from a driven well, in any given stratum, with greater ease than from an open well sunk into the same stratum, but the great advantages are that a much larger and more extended supply of water is controlled, and, in consequence of the passage of the water through the earth, under the pressure of the atmosphere, a constant filtration is secured, thus securing both a greater supply and better water. And |