Rock lined well on family place, had the world's best tasting water. One day the rock walls fell in, loudly. Daddy had been trying to get out a stuck well bucket and snagged a rock.
He got 2 men to dig a new well. I was a small boy and watched. The well was going to be lined at the water level with 3 foot concrete pipe, so the men drew an appropriate sized circle on the dirt and started digging. No dowsing involved AFIK.Used mattocks and shovels and threw the dirt out the top as long as possible. Then the set up X braces and laid a pole with handles at each end set in opposite directions. Steel cable on windlass pole with 30 or so steel barrel on end of cable. One man in well would dig and load bucket. Man on top would crank bucket to top, then empty it to one side. He got me, maybe 10 years old at the time, to hold one handle up at the top of the strike. He would run quickly around and grab the bucket, then shout for me to release the handle. I was scared of letting the handle which was heavy to hold loose and dropping the bucket of dirt down on the man in the well, but I made it through. I asked the man what they would have done if I hadn'been there to hold the handle and he said he would cranke the bucket as high as possible and run around and grab it before it fell in the well. Ok I guess, but I didn't see it done.
After each day's digging, they mixed cement and plastered the walls to keep them from caving in. At the top there was red clay which wasn't going to cave in, but further in was yellowish soil locally called well dirt which is looser. Anyway, it didn't cave in. They did not hit rock which would have had to be drilled and dynamited. My FIL at Tryon, NC, had to dig a well through a lot of granite using the dril and shoot method.
After they hit water at 50 feet and couldn't dig anymore they ordered 3 or 4 3 foot diameter concrete pipes. The delivery truck had a crane with a special catch which held the pipes until they were lowered in place and then released the catch.
One of the men said he would not go down in a rock lined well for any amount of money. He was down in one once and was being drawn up in the bucket when the bucket swung over and hit a rock, causing all the walls to fall in. He could look down and see the rocks falling in place below him, but they kept cranking and he made it to the top. I've never been in a well and plan never to be in one.
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