The Locals Didn't Know

When I asked an old timer, who has lived in these hills all his life, he said, "It's a cistern of some sort."

I didn't want to argue, but why is it in the front of the old house? Why is it always full of water, during dry spells and wet? Why is there a barrel inside the larger, three foot drum? Why would the cistern be full of water and not the root cellar under the house, which is lower in elevation?

Then I met Sadie. A smiling elderly lady. She used to live in the old two-story house from 1946 till she left home. That buried tank in the front yard was no mystery to her. "Daddy made carbide gas in there to feed the lamps throughout the house, before we got electricity."

Well, well! The same principal of a miner's lamp.

Drips of water unto calcium carbide makes acetylene gas, strike a flint, and you've got a flame. When reflected off a shiny disk it will light up a mine shaft, a cave and a room.

There is still a mystery to the situation. Where does the water come from. I've walked the acres up hill from the drum. No water source. All the springs are well below where the gas generating water level is.

There has to be a pipe feeding it. I need a metal detector to locate the pipe. I know it is not a plastic pipe.