Excerpt from Operations at River Stations, 1900, Vol. 6: A Report of the Division of Hydrography of the United States Geological Survey

The strainer is made of a piece of 3 inch pipe from 2 feet to 4 feet long (depend ing upon the fineness of the sand bearing stratum), perforated with 95-inch holes spaced from 1 inch to 173, inches between centers. N o. 12 B. W. G. Wire is wound spirally over the perforated section (the Spirals being Spaced about 1 inch apart), which then is covered with a sheet of thin brass punched full of holes about inch in diameter. The punch was specially designed for this work. It has 24 points (four rows of six in a row), and one blow of the hammer is sufficient, the sheet being placed on a wood block. The punch makes either a cone or pyram idal truncated indenture through the sheet, which, when wrapped and soldered around the perforated pipe, gives a first-class strainer. The diameter of the holes punched in the brass sheet is reduced, of course, with the fineness of the water bearing material. The holes presented to the water-bearing sand are very small, and since they increase in diameter toward the pipe, any material fine enough to enter does so without obstructing the Opening. We use a 2-inch pipe extending from the strainer to the top of the ground.

As each well is completed a No. 6 Douglas hand pump is connected to the top, and it is thoroughly pumped, to free it from clayey matter and fine sand. For merly we tested each well with a gasoline-actuated centrifugal pump, and left the bottom of the strainer pipe Open. We have found it desirable, however, to plug the bottom of the strainer before putting it into the well, which of course decreases its capacity somewhat, but is imperative in quicksand formations. These wells yield 8 or 10 miners' inches each.

We are obtaining remarkably satisfactory results from horizontal centrifugal pumps, either single or compound, actuated by gasoline engines. I have just completed a plant, the supply of which is from a small gang of wells, which is operated by a No. 3 horizontal compound centrifugal pump actuated by a 22-horsepower gasoline engine, the water being discharged into the Sweetwater distributing system against 60 pounds pressure. When last measured the plant was developing a fraction more than 29 miner's inches.

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