The Jersey City news., 1906-06-05
FORTUNE QUICKLY
DISAPPEARING
Quicksand Is Eating Up Val
liable Land Around At
lantic City
GREAT MONETARY LOSS
DISCOVERY OF THE BOG AVERT
ED A SCANDAL INVOLVING
CONTRACTORS AND PUBLIC
OFFICIALS.
Especial to "rhe Jersey city News. =

ATLANTIC CITY, June 4, 19O6.-A
Jersey quicksand, situated between this
populous resort and Pleasantyille, on the
months, made the legendary tales of Old
World bogs and similar danger spots ap-
pear insignificant. Within its maw has
been swallowed up a fortune, while a
contracting firm has been all but ruined,
and scandal, in which might have been
involved public officials and well-known
fnanciers of the city and county, has
been but scantly avoided since its exist
ence was first discovered.
The bog lies almost in the geographical
centre of the new boulevard being con-
structed as public highway for entrance
and egress to and from Atlantic City,
and it was not until the work was well
under way that the deep and yielding
morass was encountered. On the men
who made the contract for the stupen-
dous undertaking of earring roadway
across the waste Of salt marsh will fall
the major portion of the monetary loss,
which will foot up to over a hundred
thousand dollars, while on the financiers
who guaranteed the completion of the
work and the hotel interests of Atlantic
City, awaiting the finishing of the road
way, will indirectly rest loss of many
thousands more.
In the meantime the public, impatient
of the delay in finishing of the boulevard,
have taken to task county and state off,
cials who have the work in their charge,
and the hard feeling caused primarily by
the inability Of the roadmakers to sue
cessfully combat the forces of nature
may have mighty effect on the political
life of some
In spite of the most intimate knowl-
edge of the general conditions of the
foundation way for the road across the
of hidden quicksands came as both a sur
prise and shock to the engineers and
road builders intent on their work of fill
ing in the line marked out to a height
and irmness intended to make the pro-
jected boulevard one of the wonders OF
the states internationally famous road
system.
The highway was to have been six
miles long, sixty to 100 feet in width and
ten feet above the level of the lowlands
on either side. No expense as to have
been spared to properly construct the
highway, and, with the full consent and
approval of the late road commissioner,
Henry Budd the contract for the.
work is let to Hess & LIE Chard, for
$4,000. The route of the road was
across the salt meadows, intersected with
salt ponds and narrow water courses,
and the work of pumping sand from the
thoroughfare to fill the line up to re-
quired grade was begun in December,
1903.
For a time the work went on swim
pumping loose sand and silt, filed in
over a half million cubic yards before
the first intimation was given of the ex-
istence of the quagmire-since the cause
of so much trouble and loss. A two
mile stretch in the centre of the road
way had been partially filled in, when,
after several days cessation of work on
account of a heavy storm, the engineers
in charge noticed what they believed to
be a gradual sinking. Investigation with
levels showed that the long piece of par
tally built highway was really going
down into the meadow slowly, but so
steadily that it's sinking could be marked
from day to day.
The immense streams of sand from
the big dredges were at once directed
into the braech, and from that time until
a few weeks ago, when financial con-
tingencies forced a readjustment OF the
plans, hundreds of men and thousands
of dollars worth of machinery labored
together to get the better of TIE setting
sands. Changes were made in the speci-
fications to meet the changes in condi-
tions. and $4,000 was allowed to the
contractors to enable them to widen the
roadway and by that means try to make
secure foundation.
For miles heavy planks were used as
bulkheads to prevent the sand and earth
from spreading as it lowered, but still
the shifting quicksands slowly but sure
" allowed the topping to sink, sometimes