A New Heating Project

1895

One of the schemes for future engineers to work at will be the sinking of a shaft 12,000 or 15,000 feet into the earth for the purpose of utilizing the central heat of the globe. It is said that such a depth is by no means impossible, with the improved machinery and advanced methods of the coming engineer.

Water at a temperature of 200 degrees centigrade, which can, it is said, be obtained from those deep borings, would not only heat houses and public buildings, but would furnish power that could be utilized for many purposes. Hot water already at hand is necessarily much cheaper than that which must be taken when cold and brought up to the required temperature. Once the shaft is sunk, all cost in the item of the hot water supply ceases. The pipes, if good, will last indefinitely, and as nature's stokers never allow the fire to go out there would come in the train of this arrangement many advantages.

When by sinking a shaft in the earth we can secure a perpetual heating apparatus which we can regulate by the turning of a key, one of the trials of life will fade into nothingness. — New York Ledger.