The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-10-10
STRUGGLING WITH THE SAND.
Brunswicks Quiclsand Is Worse for Sewer
Builders Than Solid Ledge-How the
Treacherous Sand and Water Must Be
Handled-Why the Wells are Dry-why
the Water Pipe Broke Yesterday.

The town of Brunswick, or rather Con
tractor j. H. Flanagan, of Portland, is
having a battle of no small proportions in
order to put in the sewer system that it SO
much needs. The sand of that section,
saturated as it is with water, is a very
slippery enemy to grapple with. The trench
is now being dug in front of the Tontine
house across the broad main street of the
town, and all the difficulties of the situation
are there presented. 1t must be eighteen
feet deep in order to get the proper grade
for the pipe at this point.
From distance it.looks as if earthworks
or a dam were being built. Two walls of
two inch plank, project up between the
great nouns of sand. The sides Of the
trench have to he lined with this wall of
plan1ing to prevent them from caying At
one end the planks are being driven down
with huge mallets and stout braces pounded
into place to hold them apart. At the
other end, where.the pipe has been laid and
the trench filed up, squad of Italians are
pulling up the planks by a simple but
powerful device, whereby great beam is
used as a lever
The trench is SO full of cross beams and
platforms that one can hardly. see the bot
tom, where there is always over a foot OF
water, which is always being pumped out.
The sand comes up, one shovelful at time,
transmitted from platform.to platform (of
which there are rwo) and thence to the
heap outside. Four men shovel each shovel
full.
But over at the end of the trench, in the
middle of the wide street there is a great
square hole that it is even deeper than the
trench in which there are three platforms,
where five men shovel each shovelful and
over which a steam pump is at work pour
ing out stream of water six inches in
diameter.
There is SO much water in this sand at
Brunswick, that the pumps could not keep
the trench dry enough to work in, if the
plan was not adopted of digging a great
square pit at intervals, several feet deeper
than the trench into which the water
drains and is thence pumped out. The
above pit will be twenty-four feet deep,
when completed, the trench being but
eighteen feet deep. .e,-.s
Thus a large area to a considerable depth
Is drained into these pits and that is why
all the private wells in the town, that are
near the sewer streets have gone dry.
These pits haves taken the bottom out of
them. AS one men expressed it. There
are one hundred wells for sale cheap in
Brunswick
Another man said to Mr.. Flanagan, ssI've
got we'll that is TWENTY-FIVE feet deep, and
has never gone dry. 1t is boiling spring."
lyon wait till get along with the
sewer said Mr.. Flanagan. And sure
enough, when the e5 foot pit was dug near
by, the water drained into it through the
quicksand and the we'll was dry.
But yesterday the sewerstrench caused a
flood instead of a drouth. AT little before
noon. close alongside the Tontine house,
huge boiling spring burst from the ground
without the slightest warning. The water
came up in a bubbl1ng stream two feet in
diameter, at point in the street about the
feet from the edge of the trench, and in
stantly good sized waterfall was pouring
down upon the laborers below. They
climbed out in hurry
Of course water pipe had burst. 1t was
nearly an hour before the flow could be
stopped, for after the main pipe from the
reservoir was shut off all the pipes had to
pe emptied through this bvaak. The sewer
trench eighteen feet deep was filed to with
in four feet of the top and of course had to
be pumped out again.
At this point the water pipe runs parallel
to the sewer trench. and about four feet
from it. For some distance from the edges
of the trench the ground settles, despite
the planking, and of course the water pipe
settled with it, perhaps only a couple of
inches but that was enough to snap short
off another six ineh:iron water pipe running
at right angles to the first pipe and con-
Meeting with it.
This settling of the earth about the
trenches has caused a good deal of damage
to gas pipes by getting them out of level.
They will have.to be relaid, as Tany bend
in gas pipe causes deposit of coal tar
and stops up the pipe.
Altogether, the bed--o quicksand under
Brunswick, saturated with water like a
sponge, is worse than bed of solid rock
would be-.