The sun., 1906-02-18
Pe.ru.na A Tonic After La Grippe.

mite was divided among these holes.
The drillings We're made at spot about
men rigged up two heavy raft shaped
timber contrivanc es and laid them over
the drllings as protection gainst trouble.
These were made of 1. inch tmbers
roEed strongly together, too heavy for half
thirty feet skyward' when the dynamite
let go. They travelled in big arc clear
over Convent ave0ne and they fell into
-the Gulcb,' Not q illustrated better
what happened wren the charge was
touched off than be trip those big t'mhers
took,
ROAR AND a sIIock
Pucci sent man to warn Nc Donough
up at the water gates, and then. it is sud.
ordered Joseph Mlcnaels tpolce srellingJ
dynamite, The -Cuineas, as the popul ce
of Harlem called them. with some eXpls-
tives, all yesterday afternoon, scatt tered out
| of the way. Mlchaels touched off the
charge, and in the words of Capt, Thompson,
Hell broke for sure"
There was terrific roar which half Har-
lem heard and wondered at, a conclusion
which broke windows in buildings n quarter
of mile away and Jared houses for mile
around. p into the air went a mass of rock
and loose earth that had been ripped out
of its bed for spa ce fifty feet long and per-
haps Thirty feet wide. When it came down
there wasn't any more Convent avenue at
that point.
The tia ians were too badly scared to
talk about what happened They ran like
! sheep, dropping over the hillside, praying
to such saints as they thought they might
stand well with. and scattering all over Har-
lem, frightened out of their wits and fear
ing the police,
Altleri it seems. was not on hand. Pucci
wasn't either a minute or two after the
trouble broke. The last seen of Pucci he
was hiking up the Convent avenue hill like
| six furlong sprinter.
There were plenty of people in and about
Convent avenue, but it took them a long
time to collect their impressions.
The dynamite exploded with such force
that the smaller rocks were shot up fully
fifty feet in the air. In the mass were
half a dozen gigantic fragments. great
stones that couldn't he crammed into an
ordinary room. Two of these. the two
that smashed the water mains, must have
weighed many tons. What struck every
body who remembered much of what
happened when the blast went Off was the
queer way those big rocks behaved.
ROCKS CRUSHED THE STREET
One man who watched the scene from
house in Convent avenue said they rose
so slowly that he kept wondering why
they didn't stop going and drop back
| Others who were there said pretty much
the same thing. They we're hoisted rer-
hap, twelve or fifteen feet, describing a
slight curve in the air from the broken
ledge. They dropped when they we're
squarely over tho centre of the avenue.
The street broke under them as if it had
| been made of brown pasteboard. The
big boulcers cras he'd through the asphalt,
! crus hing and rendingit. They drove through
phalt tore through foot or two of hard
| packed earth under the crushed stone.
| and ground down upon the big water mains,
lying eight in row. with ttaIic force.
! Perhaps II was because of the lrregu- =
arties of the surface Of the rocks tha I
| only two mains were smashed; this was
the only way the Water Department officia Is
| could figure it out. Other boulders rearlv
az heavy broke through the street and
landed squarely on the mains, but didn't
| break them
When the dust cleared away u section of
Convent avenue n hundred feet long had
| been reduced to primeval conditions. Big
| rocks were piled on one another Here
and there Jagged section of asphalt stuck
up; there were mounds of earth and hills
| and valleys made of broken stones and all
the rest Of the debris.
! Out of this chaos, from the shattered
| mains, there shot a WATERFRONT to the evel
of the roofs of the four story houses across
| the way. Then the torrent began racing
| down the hill and rolling over the edge of
the avenue into THE Gulch."
FIGHTlNG THE FLOOD.
Supt. McDonough was sitting in the
! office of the water gate station at Convent
avenue and l35th street when he heard a
roar that shook the chair under him. He
| took a look at the gauge in which the water
was sinking fast,
Il bet there's the deuce to pay somewhere
down the line said McDonough to George
! r. id, one of his assistants. 1--WE got a
hunch the 'guineas' have put puncture
in the big mains"
McDonough picked up his hat and went
running down Convent avenue He made
six blocks in less than six minutes. He
spent some time trying to find what mains