Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-10
Price Four Cents.

from the well on the river side, and extending 1 sixteen feet toward the centre There is a platform of boards around it, and there are
 many tubes and pipes, heaps of bricks, and
 one steam pump upon this platform. Be- meath the platform, which appears to be at | the bottom of the well. but is really only half way down, there is sheet of muddy water | covering the silt 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 in the tunnel | is accomplished without destroying the even | pressure of air in the shaft. The Sun report | CT saw six men enter the tunnel yesterday to | go to work in 1t, and presently he saw four leave 1t. The six men were lowered in @ wooden bucket, which was swung over the pit from the arm of @ derrick. The door of the boiler-hke air-lock was opsn; but there | is an inner door that was shut, and beyond 1t, in the tunnel, the pressure of twenty pounds of air to the square inch was maintain ed. The men entered the air-lock and closed
 the outer door, the engines capitalized the air pressure in the lock with that in the tunnel.
 and then the inner door was opened and the
 workmen passed into the tunnel, It took
 ten minutes to do this. Men with heart or lung diseases could not work under these con- dltlons, but healthy young men are said to ex-
 perience no harm from them. When the work progresses further this pressure will
 have to be doubled. The four men who de- | sired to come out stepped into the air-lock
 closed the door behind them, and s1gnallsd to l the engineer. The compressed air was aI lowed to escape with a deafening roar, like the escape of steam from a thousand locomo- l tive safety valves. and presently the door opened. A dense cloud of brown smoke roll ed out from the lock, and as it thinned out
 the forms of the workmen passing through were distinguishable. The reporter was in
 formed that this was the smoke of the candles,
 by the light of which the men work in the shaft. Fifteen or eighteen pounds of candles are consumed by them in day, and the smoke
 they create is great hindrance to the work,
 although only the very best adamautine coach
 lights are used. The electric lights, which
 emit neither smoke nor heat will soon be
 used in place of candles. One light over the
 well and one in the shaft will supply all the
 illumination that is needed. Work in the
 tunnel never ceases. It is prosecuted by three
 gangs, each gang working eight hours. Some
 times the men eat their meals in the shaft
 but as often they come out and spend half an
 hour on the earth's surface. Theirs is not
 dainty work. The earth that they dig out
 is mixed with water in the bottom of the
 shaft, and when it has reached certain depth
 and consistency it is blown out into the great
 brick well by the air pressure in the shaft
 through pipes that lie at the bottom of the ex-
 cavation and that are built out to follow the
 workmen as they extend the shaft. When
 ever it is necessary this mud is bailed out of
 the well to make way for more. As the tun-
 nel IS now lt mas the shape or gigantic bot
 tie, the air-lock taking the place of cork in
 the bottles neck. The neck of the bottle is formed by the narrow bore that was gradually
 widened until the permanent diameter of
 twenty one feet was reached. As the exca-
 vators work they are closely followed by men
 who line the shaft with plates of riveted iron,
 and these in turn are followed by masons who construct the arched brickwork that forms the tunnel wall. Nearly one hundred feet of the permanent tunnel have been completed. No date is set for the beginning of the work on the New York side of the river