The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-11
SKYSCRAPERS AND WELLS.
CaIssons in Building Not ga New, q Former
Country BOZ Thinks.

A crowd stood in a downtown street
looking at the block on the other side Of
the way, from which all the old buildings
had been cleared and where many men are
now at work preparing for the foundation
Of a great business building.
The workmen were sinking a caisson
within which the earth would be excavated
down to the solid rock on which to build
up finally n Of the supporting piers Of
the building. Cylindrical in shape, this
caissOn had rising out Of the top Of it a
smaller cylinder, the air lock, through
which the ~excavated material would be
hoisted out, for the work in the csisson
would be don under compressed air.
The thing that had attracted the people
standing along the curb just now was the
loading Of the top Of this caisson to faoili-
tate its sinking. Standing in the street near
by was q stack Of oblong shaped blocks of
cast iron. each W it'll a staple in it, ingots of
iron weighing each about a ton. A man
running a noiseless derrick with a boom
about forty feet long would swing that
boom around over the pile Of iron blocks,
doing this apparently as easily as he might
have swung his lifted forefinger around
there, and a man standing on the pile of
blocks would nook the tackle into one Of
those ton weight iron ingots and then the
derrick man would pick it up n swing it
over to precisely where it wantedsto go on
the top OF the caisson and lower it there,
and a man would cast Of the hook.
And so they kept swinging over those
heavy iron blocks to load the caisson and
II was an interesting operation, which the
people standing about watched intently;
but one man in thec crowd had something else
in his mind Looking at the caisson:
THE use Of compressed air in such work"
he said to his neighbor. is new; but the
idea OF sinking things and then digging out
inside of them ia old; wells have been dug
in that way in this country for $50 years
al least. They used to dig them in my
part of the country when l wa a boy.
-N course you could sink a well in that
way in sandy soil only; but with the ground
right for it they levelled OF the spot where
they were going to put the well down and
then they Laid on the ground a fiat ring
shaped platform made OF planking, this
ring shaped platform being, around its
inner edge, Of the circumference that the
inside OF the wells wall would be: and
around its outer edge. Of the circumference
that the outside of the wall would be.
And then on this circular platform lying
on the ground they began building up
above ground the wall OF the well they
were going to dig, a brick wall, three bricks
thick, around on the platform, building 30
until they had got it up two or three feet in
wall waltz to- dc the well, the wsif sinking grad
ually a. they dug the earth away.
.The platform on which the masonry
was laid was designed to equalize the strain
on h as IL went down. The digging was
done carefully, of course, and as uniformly
as possible all around 40 as to have the wall
settle uniformly; but II the earth was dug
away too much at one point the platform
supported the wall there.
and 40 they kept on digging below
and sending up the earth, and 40 gradually
dropping the wall lower and lower, while
men we're all the time building on at the top,
Until they got down TO water. Like sink
ing a modern ~caisson, you see, in a way,
only they didn't use compressed air."