The Strange 'Living' Well of Port Townsend
A dry well dug in an addition to Port Townsend acts as a natural, pneumatic barometer, baffling local scientists.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A peculiarity of nature in the form of a chronometer well, capable of forecasting the weather with the same precision and accuracy as that of the most delicate mechanism now in use, exists in this city. J. B. Novotny, on his home in the Elsener’s addition, last year sunk a well to the depth of seventy feet. Not finding water, he abandoned the project. While digging through the sand, Mr. Novotny says he often felt a steady draft of air coming out through the sand. Just preceding a storm, when the density of the air becomes lighter, the force of wind fairly whistles through the auger holes as it escapes from the well. W. B. Godfrey, the city and county surveyor, constructed a wooden box with a paddle on a pivot connected to a pencil and cylinder, which accurately registers the force and direction of the atmospheric current in or out of the well.
“Just preceding a storm, when the density of the air becomes lighter, the force of wind fairly whistles through the auger holes.”
This oddity reflects a Victorian fascination with 'natural' science and the amateur experimentation that characterized the Pacific Northwest's frontier era. While the 'tyrannic' well is long gone, Port Townsend remains a city defined by its peculiar geography and local lore.
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