The St. Johns herald., 1893-08-24
A TREMENDOUS BLAST.
One Hundred Thousand Tons Of
 Rock Displaced.
It Took Seventy-Fivc Men Six Weeks to Prepare the Blast-A Difficult and Dangerous Under
 taking.

Ohe of the largest and most success ful blasts on record was recently made in the Palisades two miles north of Port Lee ferry, and about opposite Port Washington on the Hudson river The blast removed about thousand feet of the face of the cliff, tearing it off to the depth of three hundred feet.
 The beauty of the blast, says the Boston Globe, was that, although two tons of dynamite was used, it was so skilfully planned that, when the mine was exploded by the electric spark, the quarrymen stood within three hun dred feet of the spot without feeling the shock unpleasantly. People living on the summit of the Palisades, who had been warned to forsake their houses at the moment of the blast, didn't even report a window glass broken.
 The report of the four thousand pounds of exploding dynamite was less noisy than that of the ordinary blast ing operation familiar to the residents of the uptown district. All that was noted was grumbling as of subter- ranean thunder, and then the great column of rock known as Washington's head rose gracefully and in solid mass, and fell crumbling on the slopes below, where it's fragments now lie dis tributed in a confused and confusing wilderness of powders.
 Superintendent Harvey A. Banks was busy in preparing for it for six weeks with a gang of seventy-fve men. It was slow work and needed careful engineering. MT. Banks planned the thing himself, and was much gratifed that his calculations proved so near the actual results achieved.
 In the first place tunnel was drilled near the base of the big rock, which lowered up three hundred and fifty feet above the heads of the miners. This tunnel was extended about thirty feet into the solid rock, and was made just large enough for man to crawl into. At that point the tunnel was made to change its course downward and obliquely for distance of sixty feet.
 Then it was carried back again straight through the rock wall until a vertical seam or split in the formation occurred, which offered an admirable resting place for the destroying dyna- mite. This seam was followed down for a distance of some thirty feet or more, and in commodious chamber almost wholly modelled by nature the workmen prepared nest for the pow der.
 It took several days to carry the dan gerous stuff through these tunnels and load it into the rock chamber. This was ticklish work, and the men, mostly Italians, didn't relish it much. After it was all in position it had to be tamped in and covered up with earth and logs, so that there might be no waste of the force. After this, con- nections were made with an electric battery which was placed far above on the summit of the cliff.
 When the charge was fired there was a moment of suspense, and then the ground trembled under their feet, and a dull rumbling seemed to rise out of the very bowels of the earth The big column of rock could be seen to sway a moment and then rose up almost bod fly, as if propelled by an engine work ing at its very foundations, and fell out towards the rivers shore, breaking into many fragments in its career and filling the slope with a rock deposit reckoned at one hundred thousand tons at least.