Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1880-04-03
Underneath the Hudson.

well, smoothly lined with Drlck, Sixty
feet deep, and wide enough to admit an
ordinary dwelling house, This well is
covered by a clumsy wooden shanty,
high enough to admit a derrick, and big
enough to hold the two engines and
three boilers, the coal heap, brick pile,
clothes closets and Office for the work.
men and the company's officers. This
shanty is at the foot of Fifteenth Street,
three-auarters of the way from the
Pennsylvania ferry to the Hoboken line.
1t is close to the rivers edge, two blocks
distant from Provost Street, the thor
oughfare nearest the river bank. The
river originally flowed where the shanty
is, and underneath the filling is the
original silt. The great well beneath
the shanty is not to be a terminus of the
tunnel. 1t is merely starting point
which the tunnel shaft is TO pierce, and
it was sunk because that was deemed
the better way to begin the great work.
The tunnel will be worked back beneath
the city more than half mile, breaking
through the surface beyond Erie
Street, and having its absolute terminus
and depot in Jersey Avenue. Event
ually this well may or may not be closed
up, but in either event the tunnel Will
pass along through it as it passes any
other point in its course. The tunnel,
when completed will be two miles long,
and three-quarters of mile of its length
will be directly beneath the bed of the
river. As the river channel is nearest
the New York bank, and there is wide
stretch of shoal water on the Jersey
side, there will be continuous slant
from the Jersey shore nearly across the
river. when a short incline upward will
bring the tunnel to the surface in this
city. At its lowest point the top of the
tunnel will be one hundred and two feet
below the surface of the river and about
twenty feet beneath the river bed. The
New York terminus will be in the neigh
borhood of Washington Square, and
work in this city will be begun near the
foot of Leroy Street, which is almost
exactly opposite Fifteenth Street in Jer-
sey City.
BY ordinary means it would have
tunnel through the silt that was encoun-
tered at the outset, and must be fought
the greater part of the way. President
Haskins devised the plan OF sustaining
the earth above the excavation by
pressure of air. A powerful pumping
engine supplies the force. For safety's
sake there Is duplicate engine, and
there are three boilers, because an acci-
dent that removed the pressure of air in
the shaft would bring about certain dis
aster and possible loss of life. The
original plan was to bore one shaft sllf-
ficiently wide for double railroad track
and high enough to admit of the pas
sage of railroad cars. 1t was found
necessary, however, TO altar this, and
now the tunnel is composed of two
shafts, side by side like the barrels Of n
fowling piece. and strengthened as well
as separated by central partition. These
tunnels will each contain a single rail-
road track, and will be twenty-One feet
in diameter, which gives room for Di-
rector's palace coach, the tallest of
railroad vehicles.
A visitor to the edge of the great
brick well sees what looks like large
boiler protruding from the well on the
river side, and extending sixteen feet
toward the center. There is a platform
of boards around it, and there are many
tubes and pipes, heaps of bricks and
one steam-pump upon the platform
Beneath the platform, which appears to
be at the bottom of the well, which is
really only half way down, there is
sheet Of muddy water covering the slit
that has been thrown from the tunnel.
The protruding boiler is what is known
as the air-lock, by which the egress and
entrance of the workmen to the tunnel
is accomplished without destroying the
even pressure of air in the shaft. The
San reporter saw six men enter the tun-
mel yesterday to go to work in it, and
nreSentlv be saw four leave it The six