Down in a Well

[Metal Monkey]

I crawled down in my neighbors 200 yr old, hand dug well tonight. I thought there had to be some coins, that people over the years, had thrown down in there. The bottom had a lot of soft, sticky, sandy clay like silt in it. I tossed in a penny just to make sure it would read under water. Worked fine. Then I started stomping around, detecting. I was getting scattered and jumpy signals. After a couple of minutes, I'm sure I stepped on the penny by now. I was unable to find this penny? Is there something I don't know about silt, clay, ect? Could there be something with the dirt that's causing bad signal reads? I know there has to be some coins in this thing.

 

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[TheGoldProspector]

I crawled down in my neighbors 200 yr old, hand dug well tonight. I thought there had to be some coins, that people over the years, had thrown down in there. The bottom had a lot of soft, sticky, sandy clay like silt in it. I tossed in a penny just to make sure it would read under water. Worked fine. Then I started stomping around, detecting. I was getting scattered and jumpy signals. After a couple of minutes, I'm sure I stepped on the penny by now. I was unable to find this penny? Is there something I don't know about silt, clay, ect? Could there be something with the dirt that's causing bad signal reads? I know there has to be some coins in this thing.

Wasnt this posted yesterday? Or is this another perminition due to my lucid dreaming?


. I hope you find your answer

 

[Metal Monkey]

I put it on the Garrett section, but only received 1 reply. I was hoping someone has tried this before.

 

[DonDigger]

You will not find many people that will or have descended into old hand dug wells which is probably why you didn't get much in the way of responses. Couldn't get me to go down one. I grew up around quite a few old wells, and most had the walls cave in at some time in the past. Since you did get to the bottom and back out, I take it the well walls have held up. Hope its safe for your sake. As for the silt, all wells silt up over time, hand dug or drilled, and occasionally need to be cleaned out. No telling how deep your silt layer is so targets could be anywhere from the surface to many feet deep. Also, it is amazing the junk that went down old wells, particularly after the land owner quit using it for potable water. I have seen them almost filled with farm junk. Best way to search for targets in this situation would be to set up a screen on the surface and just take a bucket of silt at a time and screen it. Would require a buddy on the surface to do the screening and one in the hole to fill buckets. Leave the detector at home. Also, depending on the depth, clean air can be a problem. CO2 can build up in the bottom from your breath which can be dangerous to say the least. Be careful.

 

[gallileo60]

I would love to help you out on this one...Good luck....

 

[cudamark]

Yup, set up a fan for ventilation and a good winch up top to pull you out in a hurry if needed.

 

[Metal Monkey]

I did take a gas meter down to check, and everything read negative, so I'm good there. As for the well collapsing, I'll say a little prayer.

 

[ContinentalClint]

I've done the same thing! However the well I went down into was filled with rocks and dirt, probably to keep people and animals from falling down into it. I built a pulley system and pulled out the rocks until the well was 18 feet deep. That's when I hit the water line, and the well would fill up faster than I could pump it. I think I was pretty close to the bottom but I guess I'll never know. I wasn't getting any signals on the detector. My advice would be to fill up buckets of silt until you can't dig any more. That way you won't miss anything. Then once you've done that, sift it and scan it with the detector. There's bound to be stuff in there. Good luck!

 

[Keppy]

That would be to much of a chance for me to take .. I want to live a little longer .. A large Cache is not worth my life let alone a few coins … I don't live on the edge i always put safety first..

 

[Keppy]

For the sake of safety and efficiency, might make more sense to set up a dredge of some kind and screen the dirt that comes out.

Now that is a good idea...