Read time: 9 min.

After I got home from yesterday’s disappointing dry artesian well, a series of questions popped into my head. What does the inside of a flowing well look like when it isn’t flowing? Is the pipe clogged? Has it collapsed somewhere underground? Is there still water deeper down, waiting to find its way to the surface once it rains? Thanks to my Ko-fi supporters, I now possess a device poised to satisfy my local-history-and-artesian-well-related curiosities! Maybe I can find my thirty-year-old Hot Wheels Bugatti while I’m at it.

What I’ve dubbed the Muncie Pike well near Mt. Summit wasn’t flowing when I visited the other day. According to Google Street View, it may not have flowed in years. Then again, artesian wells can be fickle creatures: some gush one day and sit silent the next, so there was always a chance I’d simply caught it at the wrong moment. That’s where my new endoscope comes in.

For about forty bucks, Amazon supplied a thirty-three-foot camera snake capable of peering into places no curious local historian has any business peeping down. All of the sudden, artesian wells, drains, abandoned conduits, and mysterious holes in the ground suddenly become fair game! A day after I visited the Muncie Pike well, I was greeted by a box with the endoscope itself along with a handful of accessories: a screw-on safety ring to keep the lens away from bumps and scratches, a magnetic tip, a hook attachment, a mirror tip, and adapters for both Lightning and MicroUSB phones.

I suddenly possessed all the tools necessary to retrieve lost treasures from hard-to-reach places or, more importantly, satisfy my curiosity about the dry artesian well I’d just been made aware of. For those purposes, it appears as if the AOCATH endoscope is fairly capable- especially since it cost less than two Arroz Con Pollo plates and a couple of beers from Juan’s. The pair of 2-megapixel cameras -one looking straight ahead and another mounted on the side- won’t win any awards for fidelity, but they seem decent enough. The cable is semi-rigid, at least in theory. It’s supposed to be stiff enough to push into narrow pipes and other hard-to-reach spaces while remaining flexible enough to negotiate bends and obstructions along the way. An inline controller near the USB-C plug adjusts the LED headlight and switches between cameras.

In addition, the camera carries an IP67 waterproof rating. According to AOCATH, whatever that brand is, the camera I bought can survive submergence in a little more than three feet for an hour. That may prove useful later. With thirty-three feet of cable at my disposal, there’s a decent chance I can reach some water if it’s lurking below the surface.

My brother was curious about the endoscope. He occasionally comes along on history adventures with me, and we decided there was only one sensible thing to do: drive twenty miles to Muncie Pike and poke the camera down the pipe. When we arrived, the well looked exactly as it had a few days earlier: dry. There was no trickle, no drip, and no sign that water had passed through recently. As I connected the endoscope to my phone and fumbled with the controls, I accidentally snapped this picture. The camera’s low fidelity is clear.

This bargain-bin endoscopic camera wasn’t purchased to win photography contests, of course. Instead, it’s intended for a workingman’s view of the world: peering inside walls, inspecting plumbing, diagnosing car trouble, and so on. I knew its limitations, but what I really wanted to learn was whether someone had permanently plugged the well on Muncie Pike. If I lowered the camera and found a column of concrete, the mystery would be solved and I’d have no reason to make another pilgrimage. On the other hand, there was still hope if the pipe remained open. I’d add this one to my list of sites worth keeping an eye on.

The part of Muncie Pike where the well sits is not an ideal place to conduct research. Rural traffic barrels through the hills at astonishing speeds on one side of the road, while a pair of large, enthusiastic dogs patrol the other side from behind a fence. Fortunately, John made friends with the canine contingent, which left me free to focus on the well. Carefully, I began feeding the endoscope down the pipe. The experience was strangely familiar, reminding me of the time a urologist removed a stent after a lithotripsy procedure. If you’ve never had that done, count it among your blessings.

In both cases, the process involved slowly guiding a long, flexible instrument into a narrow opening while wondering exactly what awaited at the other end. The difference, of course, was that this time I was controlling the camera instead of grimacing. With traffic roaring past and the dogs supervising from afar, the camera disappeared deeper into the darkness. This first photo I snapped indicated some blurry rust, but not much else.

It didn’t take long to learn that operating this endoscope is very much a two-person job for best results. John wound up feeding the cable deep into the pipe while I watched the screen and snapped the photos. Before long we were getting our first real look inside the well! This image shows the horizontal section of the apparatus just beyond the opening. Decades of mineral deposits, rust, and accumulated debris coated the interior walls. Still, what caught my attention was what wasn’t there. There was no obvious plug of concrete, no cap, and no sign that anyone had intentionally filled the pipe to permanently disable the well. That was encouraging!

As the camera reached the elbow, I cranked the LEDs up to full brightness as John eased it toward the bend. For the first time, we could see beyond the horizontal pipe and into the vertical shaft. The view was equal parts fascinating and unsettling: the pipe walls were heavily coated, with rough surfaces illuminated by the camera’s harsh light. Beyond them, the tube descended into darkness. The image is blurry since guiding a camera around a rusty ninety-degree bend isn’t exactly precision photography, but it was clear enough to answer the question that mattered most. The well wasn’t plugged.

I dialed the LEDs back down and took this photo peering down into the depths of the vertical pipe. Rather than ending abruptly against concrete or debris, the shaft continued downward beyond the reach of the snake. Still, somewhere below, the rest of the casing appeared intact from what I saw. For the first time since arriving, I felt a surge of optimism. Whatever had silenced the well on Muncie Pike didn’t appear to be permanent.

Unfortunately, that’s about the best image we managed to capture. Despite repeated attempts, John and I simply couldn’t convince the camera to make the ninety-degree turn. The semi-rigid cable was excellent at traveling in a straight line, but every time we tried to guide it around the elbow and down the shaft, it stubbornly refused to cooperate. We poked, twisted, rotated, pushed, and pulled. Occasionally we thought we had it, only to discover on the phone screen that the camera was staring at the side of the pipe again. We didn’t really have a way of knowing which way the side camera was oriented, either. After many failed attempts, we reluctantly admitted defeat and pulled the endoscope back out.

I dramatically deemed this trip as a failure, but John reminded me that it hadn’t been a total loss. After all, he said, we’d confirmed that the well wasn’t plugged, and we’d learned a valuable lesson about the limitations of our equipment. As we packed up, John suggested zip-tying a length of steel wire alongside the cable to give it more rigidity and mark the side with the additional camera. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that he was onto something.

Before calling it quits, though, we decided on one last Hail Mary. Just south of the well sat a grated drain designed to collect the outflow. On a whim, we threaded the endoscope into the tunnel beneath the grate and began feeding it into the darkness. If we couldn’t explore the well itself, perhaps we could at least investigate the route its water once traveled on its way back to the surface. It was hard to see down the corrugated cylinder, but we found a pipe that led the flow towards its ultimate desintation.

I’m not entirely convinced this bargain-priced endoscope will survive years of abuse in muddy ditches, rusty pipes, and artesian wells, but it already proved its worth. Like so many of my adventures, this second expedition to the Muncie Pike Well generated far more questions than answers. We didn’t solve the mystery, but we did learn that the well doesn’t appear to be permanently plugged, and that’s something, at least.

The trip also gave me plenty to think about. John’s steel-wire idea has merit, and I can already imagine other modifications and improvements. Maybe Version 2.0 of the Artesian Well Exploration Program will feature a steerable camera. Maybe it’ll have a stiffer cable. Perhaps, with your help, I’ll devise some entirely new contraption that would make a plumber shake his head in disbelief. Maybe I’ll snap some pictures of those friendly dogs.

Whatever form it takes, I’m sure newer and better ways of using this technology lie in my future. After all, every expedition teaches me something. Sometimes, the most important discovery isn’t what’s hidden underground- it’s figuring out how to look a little deeper the next time.