Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1903-04-21
soTToMLEss PIT.
Bottom Of Great Salt Lakes Seems
to Have Dropped Out in Spots.

E. HI. Hartman has called some
of the most noted engineers in this
country into consultation over the col
lapsed Lucin cutoff, which has al
ready cost more than 81, 900. 900, and
they admit they are puzzled. FOR the
past week they have been investigat-
Great Salt Lake where the track sud
denly .,nnk into the water. throwing
a locomotive into the lake.
The Lucin cutoff is one of Lir. Har-
the northwest end of the lake. and by
it the Southern Pacific route to San
Francisco is shortened sixty miles.
me crt-off is considered n Of the
remarkable engineering feats of mod
| EN- railroad building. The track
was laiG across the lake on great
pies, and was so far completed that
a locomotive wa ssent spinning across
it tc test the track. About a half
mile finn shore the .rltx sank into
the VAR, and the engine pl lngcd into
the lake drowning the brennan.
At the point where the trail drop
ped it is believed by some experts
that a bottomless quagmlre mas been
| discovered in the lake. Some engl-
neers indorse this theory, while 9TH
ers oppose it.
Be hat as it may, SIX 40-fOot piles
of steel have been driven in to the
hole on top of each other, and the en-
tire 24O0 feet of steel shot through
the bed of the lake and could not be
reached. One hundred carloads OF
stone, or 1000, 900 pounds, were dump
! ed into the hole, and ten minutes later
could not be located with 40-foOt piles.
Some engineers incline to the belief
that the pit on the line of the cut-on
is a su~bterranean outlet of Salt Lake
similar TO that of the freakish HUM
boldt river in Nevada, but this theory
finds d~issenters.
Whatever the hole may be, it seems
| likely the line of the cutoff must be
changed. and it is, feared that similar
quagmires will be encountered before
the track is across the lake.
i, DR.. Adolphus T. Kecheler, of the
Smithsonian Institution, who examin-
ed the line of the cutoff last July at
the request of Mr.. Hirriman. predict
ed at that time that the trestlework
would DC insecure and unstable. He
declared that the bottom of the Great
Salt Lake was a solid crust of pre-
cipitated materials formerly carried
by the water, and that the crust was
liable to break through under the
weight of the trestle. The engineers
employed by Mr.. Hartman did not
accept DR.. Kecheler's theory, and the
result is the collapsed cutoff.
i. To illustrate what a scientific mys:
terry the lake really is it may be stated
that a mile from Lucin cutoff, steel
piles were sunk till they encountered
a solid bed OF sodium sulphate as
hard as iron. When the piles were
left over night the layer of sulphate
seemed to solder them in the bed OF
the lake and it was impossible to bulge
them with the aid of the most power
full engines used in railroad building
This is but one of the scientific mys
teries of this wonderful lake, which
is now holding up the construction OF
Mr.. Harriman's pet schemes.
Prof. J. E. Talmage, the geologist
who is now at the lake investigating
the bottomless pit, opposes the theory
that the quagmire is the outlet of the
lake. He says that the site of the
.Acut-off Isl the old bed of e river,
which has been filled with alluvium
not solid enough to bear the weight