The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-11
FROM DAWN TO DARK.
Builders of Great Northern Use
ALI the Daylight.
RAIN AND SNOW CAUSED DELAY.
A Slide Proves an Obstacle In . Tunnel
and Kills . Man-Plans for Con-
nection At Everett.

William A. Jones, of this city. returned
yesterday from the upper Skvkomish.
along the line of the Great Northern.
When asked by PosT-ISTELLIGENcER re-
porter as to the progress of the work, he
said:
Railroad building has been very much
delayed by the long continued wet weather.
In some places contractors are nearly two
months behind with their work, but all
along the line there appears great eager
ness to crowd things and make up for lost
time. On several stations men are work
ing till half past at night. or as long
as daylight lasts, beginning again in
the morning at half past or Z. AT one
place. across the north fork OF the Skyko-
mish, near the bridge, men are working all
night, and the familiar sight of the wheel
man-not the bicycler. but the wheelbar-
row cycler-can be seen pushing his load
of dirt up to the grade by the Pickering
glare of torches. So you can see that with
contractors working two shifts of men
day and night-everybody seems to have
caught Mr. Hills spirit and determination
TO have trains running at the earliest pos
sible hour.
''While there is no reason to complain at
the efforts being made to push things, I
was impressed with the fact that the peo-
pie will have to wait little longer than
they expected some months ago. The
physical obstacles cannot be overcome in
week or month. particularly when it
rains about nine days out of ten and SHOWS
the tenth. as has been the case Up in the
mountains for much of the time back. The
wagon road is now completed to within
hrae. loo of ho hnt hoH tn
shovel snow there within the last few days
in making road. The principal obstacles
in the way on this side the summit are the
tunnels and rock cuts. They are 50 stu
ated that only few men can work at a
time. hence the work can't be crowded as
it could if it were making grade in open
country. There is to be a tunnel about
1,400 feet long at Martin creek,
some twenty-eight miles above the forks of
the Skykomish. The men are in that tunnel
now about 100 feet, and have, you might
say, only made beginning. Coming this
way nearly to the forks You meet another
tunnel, where the railroad crosses from
the north to the south fork. This is at
Hastings camp, and he is having hard
time of it. The hog's-bacS, which they
are trying to tunnel, seems to be the re-
suit of gigantic land slide ages ago. 1t
is made up of clay, quicksand and water,
about the worst combination to handle
that men ever struck 1t is constantly
caving in. and progress through it is very
slow. The men are in possibly fifty feet in
the clear, but they have to breast it up
with solid timber every step of the way.
Last Monday some two or three tons Of
this clay fell over and killed one man
John Peterson-who was trying to place
mud sill below it. He was terribly crushed
and died in half an hour. There has been
30 much rain that the water has seeped all
through that soil, making it very hard to
handle. When it comes out from the tun-
mel it is of a consistency somewhat like
that of the Missouri river in places-a lit
tie too thick to swim in. but not quite
thick enough to walk on. Nobody can
predict when that tunnel will be finished,
and within the last few days the engi-
neers have been experimenting with line
around it, with view to putting in n
temporary track outside.
Coming on down the river the next
hard job is Mt McLean's camp, couple
miles below Granite. He has a good deal
of rock cutting and cribbing yet to do. but
is getting along well. A few miles further
on, at O'Leary's contract there is likely to
be considerable delay. He has some very
hard cuts to make through solid granite
and the rain has interfered so much that
he is much behind with his work He is
crowding along, however, as fast as he
can. From there on down the river work
is in good shape. There are several miles
of completed grade above Wallace and in
stations all the way down. Ties and
track can be laid on these just as soon as
the gaps are closed.
"The question of hauling supplies for the
camps this side of the summit is big one.
The steamboats, can now run to Sultan, so
that it is not necessary at present to make
horse take n daily swim at the end of a
towline. But from Sultan to the summit
there is a steady procession of big freight
wagons drawn by four horses each. The
company has on the road sixty-four of
these big wagons, and there are enough
other teamsters to bring the number of
freighters up to abou, loo. They make
the round trip between Sultan and the
summit in about four days and q half.
1.-The great majority ofthe laborers along
the line are foreigners. 4 man would
need to be quite q linguist TO have real
sociable time between here and the sum-
NIT. He should be able TO speak Italian.
French, German, Spanish, Norwegian,
Danish, Swedish. Bohemian--aud a little
English. Signs up the river are polyglot
and the fellow who only speaks one lam
guage doesn't know half that is going on.
II noticed in several places that gangs
OF men were literally working for them
selves; they had no bosses A number of
them would club together and take a con-
tract and do the work themselves. There
they were, wheeling dirt. using the pick
and the shovel. but working for them
selves in quite the American way They
would be paid by the yard when their
work was done and they would divide the
money between them. These were some
of the men who were working as long as
daylight lasted. They apparently had not
heard Of the early closing movement But
you can see from this that the Great
Northern is in good hands and is coming
just IS fast as earnest, enthusiastic men
can push ii.