Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-14

he owns that big place yonder and heaps
besides. Sand did it.
Morning, Mr. Hicks He's another one
of 'em. Turned his farm into a sand pit,
and tells me that he and the men who are
in with him are making 500 a day clear
money. Tisn't so long ago since he was
wondering where his next dollar would
come from
None Can Escape.
And so it goes, until the visitor wonders
how any one in the sand-bank country has
escaped making his pile out of sand.
But not few who could have sedulously
RETAINED from doing so. In the language
of the Swedish fo.em of one of the sand
banks, ITS their funny ideas about an
cestors that keep them poor" There's
many an old Long Island family that will
not sell its ancestral home for love or
money, no matter how much it needs the
latter, and that looks askance upon the
neighbor who will permit of such desecra-
uon Tor material gain. 1t was this attitude
on the part of land owners that six wears
ago caused the sand industry to Shift from
Manhasset Neck to Hampstead Harbor.
rms shift gave rise to a systematic and
scientific sand industry The banks on
ma! Manhasset were worked in primitive way.
The sand wit. no attempt to separate il
from gravel and loan and other extra
neous substances. was worked by hand
loaded into carts and dumped on to barges
ing from the pit. Then it was towed to
New York, where it found a ready market
and later on was screened by hand in
front of some building under construction
the plaster being mixed in a mortar bed.
10000 Tons Day.
The sand is still towed to the METROPOLIS
5000 tons, or 100000 pounds of it
daily-but that is the only part of the old
method that still generally obtains. A few
spades and carts are no longer all that is
necessary to get out the sand; Their place
has been taken by mechanical plant
that represents an investment of ali the
way from a few thousand to many thou-
sands of dollars. This radical change was
caused by one sand bank owner believing
that he could get the better portion of the
sand trade by sending his sand to market
all ready for use. And by this scheme he
got it and kept it until his riva's were
able to put machinery in operation that
also made it possible for them to supply
clean sand to customers
A typical sand bank plant looks like
nothing so much as the exterior works
of an anthracite coal mine, only the struct-
ures. instead of crowning an elevation. are
on the floor of the pit. the sem-circuIar
wall of which not infrequently towers 100
feet above. The washer is largely re-
sponsible for this similarity in appearance
1t is built on the same general plan as a
portions and is pyramidal and towers
like it.
In addition to the washer each pit has
one or more screens fed by an endless
chain of cups filled by hand and steam
shovels, and various means of transport
ing the products-fine and rough sand and
gravel-to the barges anchored by the
pier. Sometimes this is done by carts.
again toy locomotives and cars puff from
screen to washer and steam shovels for
freight and then pull out over the barges
and free themselves of their burdens But
one firm has gone a step further-it hauIs
its sand by trolley, and in this way loads
between ten and twelve barges day
High Acreage Price.
This is by far the largest sand bank on
Long Island, and one of the biggest in
America. The bank itself consists of nearly
800 acres, bought at prices varying from
ST. 600 to S1,500 an acre, and the plant is SO
large that the great pit, which begins al
most at the waters edge, extends back a
fourth of a mile and is nearly a, third of
a mile at its widest part, is not capable of
holding 1t all, three buildings having their
foundations in the bottom of Hampstead
harbor.
At this plant the sand is not only SCREEN
ed and washed free of loan and other for
eign substances, it is dried. An endless belt
carries a steady stream Of sand high over
the shore road into one of the buildings
out over the water and on to a red-hot
metal surface, which evaporates the mois-
ture in the very few seconds 1t takes the
sand to travel over it ard fall down a
hopper into a canal boat Then, when the
boat is filled, the matches are battened
down and five hours later the sand is de-
livered perfectly dry to the wharf of the
New York consignee.
is centrifugal machine that blows up
tons of sand in day into screens and