The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-14
WONDERFUL FEAT
 IN TUNNEL WORK Underground Route from Jer-
 sey to Long Island WORK PROGRESSING FAST Is Far Beneath the Subway Tracks. Pennsylvania Railroad Go. Is
 Drilling Through Two
 Miles of Rock.
WORK PROGRESSING FAST
From the New York Herald.


 ful experiences possible for the sight seer to discover in New York city, there Is no place and no experience that pro- vides so much of weird novelty as a walk from the Waldorf to the East river sev- enty-five feet under ground.
 It reveals one of the new wonders of the modern world and illustrates as no former achievement has done the bewild- ering possibilities of the city's future subterranean transportation system For more than two years men have been drill ing and blasting these two enormous cav erns under Thirty second and Thirty third streets, and now their herculean task is finished. That part of the Penn sylyania railroads great under river and underground route from New Jersey to Long Island is done. These huge holes concrete, the ties and steel rails are to be laid, and then electric trains may be started.
 There is something the least bit uncan- ny In the startling change one experiences in descending into one of these mammoth tunnels. Imagine, for example, standing directly beneath the center of Third ave- nue where Thirty-third street crosses it. One knows that only a few feet above his head the chatter and roar of elevated trains and the thunder of hoofs and wheels are sweeping along the same as ever but never the faintest sound or the slightest vibration penetrates the rocky wall. The city might be burning down, a tornado hurling the buildings to the earth un t,aip auin rf arfi in action over this very spot and the si- fence in the great tunnel would still re- main unbroken.
 Only the faint sound of trickllng water or the regular throbbing of pump greets ones ears in the long tramp from Fifth avenue to the East river. A cave In the heart of the Rocky Mountains could not provide silence and isolation more com plete than do these subterranean path ways few feet beneath the streets of the busiest city on earth.
 When trains are running through the Pennsylvania tunnel there will be three streets where a sectional view will show three levels of transit, one street that will show four and one showing five. At Second avenue, Third avenue and Ninth avenue will be the Pennsylvania tunnel, the surface car lines and the elevated structures. At Park avenue will be the iiHc ol peueSlTldI ana NeHlcle tra10e m the street. the surface cars at a lower level, the subway running beneath the surface car tunnel and the Pennsylvania tunnel thirty feet below the subway. At Sixth avenue will be the five levels of human traffic, first the cross over bridge at the Thirty-third street 'L" station, below that the elevated tracks, next the street surface, then the McAdoo tunnel, and underneath that the six tracks of the Pennsylvania underground system ap- preaching the great terminal.
 Underground Blacksmith Shop.
 Day and night the future Greater New York will behold never ceasing tides of humanity surging above and beneath one another in these sub-surface and super surface thoroughfares. Even now, stand ing in the Pennsylvania tunnels beneath Park avenue, one has vivid realization of what this network of underground routes will some day be like.
 In the Thirty-second street tunnel all most directly beneath the tracks of the subway, a blacksmith shop is in opera ton. There are the forge, the anvis, the blowing apparatus, with heaps of charcoal and the usual variety of iron implements lying about. Here night and day the anvis are ringing and the great forge glows precisely as if the shop were lo- cated on the surface instead of down in the very center of Manhattan's rocky backbone. A few feet overhead subway expresses are constantly laundering along, but no one hears so much as a rumble down in the tunnel. The men in the blacksmith shop are as utterly oblv- ious of the turmoil of the upper world as though they were a thousand miles in- stead of few feet removed from it. They are veritable vulcans in the heart of the mountain.
 Nowhere in the tunnels not even under the subway or elevated structures, are there any supports of steel or timber The rock is firm enough 10 support the great weight above 1t without any danger of the roof of the tunnel breaking through.
 With the completion of the Thirty-sec- ond and Thirtythird street tunnels from the river to Fifth avenue the major part of the land tunneling is finished There now remains to be completed only the stretch from the points west of Fifth ave nue to the big terminal, and 1t is estimat- ed that this part will be done long before the terminal structure is up and the four tubes are put through under the East river The tunnels thus far completed aggregate little more than two miles of drilling through perfectly solid rock. It Is just mile and one-eighth from the shaft at the East river to the Seventh avenue line of the terminal building, and the tunnels are finished to points 16O feet and 10S feet west of the avenue in Thirty second street.
 Street Openings.
 From these points through under Broad way and Sixth avenue, 1t will be neces- sary to make openings in the surface of the street, because the solid rock ends just west of Fifth avenue and from there on there are ridges of rock and valleys of sand through which run subterranean streams. If the subterranean tunneling were continued through that formation many of the old buildings along Thirty second and Thirty third streets would be endangered. Foundations of some of these old time structures rest upon piles driven down into the sand, and if the tunnels were pushed through beneath them the foundations would sink into the big hole and the buildings would be likely to col lapse
 For this reason it has been found neces- sary to employ the ''cut and cover" meth cd of excavation, by which openings are made in the surface of the street and new foundations are put under the old struc- lures before the actual tunnel is pushed through. Many of the more modern build ings, such as the Waldorf and Imperial hotels. have foundations resting on the bed rock, and in such places 1t will not be necessary to open the street surface In no spot, however, will traffic be inter- rupted during the completion of the tun- nels, as the actual openings will be made at night, and during the day these holes will be securely bridged over with heavy planlxing. All of the waste earth will be carried back through the completed tun- mel so that there will be no litter on the