The great Karg well was discovered on January 20, 1886, by a boring of 1,144 feet. The gas was conducted forty-eight feet above the ground through a six-inch pipe, and when lighted the flame rose from twenty to thirty feet above the pipe: with a short pipe the flames ascended to the height of sixty feet. The gas leaves the well with a pressure of 400 pounds to the square inch, and with so much force that it has raised a piece of iron weighing three tons more than 100 feet above the ground.

It is difficult to imagine the magnificent effect of this burning well at night. The noise of the escaping gas which, at the rate of forty million cubic feet per day, is like the roar of Niagara or like the thunder of a dozen railroad trains, drowning all conversation. On the nights of the first winter it was opened the ground was frozen and the people not being used to it within the radius of half a mile were disturbed in their slumbers, especially when there was a change of wind. The sound under extraordinary conditions of the atmosphere had been heard fifteen miles away, and on a dark night the light reflected on the clouds discerned for fifty miles.

Prof. G. Frederick WRIGHT, who visited on an evening a month after it was opened wrote: “Although the snow had covered the ground to a depth of several inches, in every direction for a distance of 200 yards in circumference the heat of the flame had melted the snow from the ground and the grass and weeds had grown two or three inches in height. The crickets also seemed to have mistaken the season of the year, for they were enlivening the night with their cheerful song. The neighborhood of the well seemed also a paradise for tramps. I noticed one who lay soundly sleeping with his head in a barrel, with the rest of his body lying outside on the green turf, to receive the genial warmth from the flame so high up in the air.” Cold as it was he slept in perfect comfort, with no danger of suffering so long as he was within the charmed circle.

The daily amount of heat from this single well is said to equal that from the burning of one thousand tons of soft coal.