Arizona weekly citizen., 1890-04-19
TIE SEWER qiECSs Ira TREASURES.
Workmen Find Number of Coins and Os,ier Valuable Articles in a Drain.

WaNkmen Find Number of Coins and
 Oa'her Valuable Articles in a Drain.
 A party of sewer cleaners of the de- partment of public works struck bo- nauza last week in the sewer drift and sediment of sewer in West Fifteenth street. An examination showed that there was layer of sediment nearly a foot deep on the bottom of the drain, and indicated that the sewer had not been cleaned out for years and proba- bly, not since the war.
 The sewer Is about fifteen feet under the center of the street. It has a di- ameter of nearly five feet, and man. holes are placed at every few hundred feet. The brlckwOrk was found to be solid and in excellent condition, but the air in the drain was so bad that the manhole covers had to be left open for several hours before a workman could venture to enter them. In some parts, he said, the air was so bad that even the sewer rats could not live in it, out Tn other sections of the sewer they were found i'll droves. A party of six men, under the direction of foreman, began the work of cleaning the drain early last week.
 Two of the men were lowered into adjoining manholes and worked through the sewer toward each other, semoving the sediment in buckets un- til they met. The buckets when filled wers drawn up by the men at the manholes and emptied on the street to await removal. The first bucketful showed a mass of black sand and coarse gravel, which looked like coal. When the first bucketful was emptied into the street the workmen uttered an exclamation, and one of them be- gan to spread out the contents with his shovel, while the other carefully ex- amined the black mass, picking up every foreign object that appeared iIi the gravel. Even the foreman became interested when. on pOking through the stuff with stick. he fished out part of brass, copper or gold watch chain.
 A group of spectators gathered around the manhOie to watch the op- erations, but the workmen would rot allow any one else to delve in the sed- iment A great number of bits of old brass keys were scattered through every bucketful of the stuff, with other bits of metal. But those received little attention from l.Ic workmen, who searched for bits of jewelry and for coins. The number of pieces of money was remarkable. Every turn of the shovel as the bucket was emptied would show up an old copper cent, or some other coin, which the workmen seemed to detect at glance. As fast as they were picked up the articles were handed over to one man, who placed them in bag which he carried. Occasionally ring or bracelet or a piece of one or the other was found, and when a special coin which looked like gold or silver was turned up the foreman examined 1t himself before handing 1t over to the bag.
 Yes" he remarked rather reluc- tantly, "a good many pennies find their way into the sewers with rubbish, and they sink to the bottom and are not carried far. The men in their work always find few dollars worth of stuff, which they divide equally. Most of the articles are washed in from the gutters, but some come from the houses. l have known watches to be found, but they don't amount to much after their stay in this filth. There are some pieces of bone in that load, you see. You cant tell what they may have come from. Everything soft rots, you see, or the rats eat 1t, so we don't find many pocketbooks This sewer hasn't been cleaned out for so long that there are good many pen nies in it, but 1t takes a good many of them to count for much"
 The man with a bag had a good sized load to carry at the close of his days work No attention was paid to the old brass keys, but the carts that removed the sediment were followed closely to the dump" by several Ital- ian ragpickers who lowered around the scene of operations. There were rumors of some good finds by the workmen, but they declared that the contents of the bag are not worth more than a few dollars. York Trib une.