The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-01-11
LAST WALL IN GREAT
AQUEDUCT is PIERCED
WOrkmen Blast Through Final
Boring in City's 40 Mile
Water Tube.
FORMAL SHOT TOMORROW
Mayor to Touch Button at Noon
completed System to BE
Ready in 1915.
FORMAL SHOT TOMORROW

what many believe to be the greatest
engineering feat in the world, with tho
exception of the Panama Canal. wa. prae-
ticalv completed yesterday morning al
7:il when the last of Il series of blasts
broke down & barrier OF nine feet OF rock
AL feet under ground ut 15lst street and
St Nicholas place aud made continuous
the A~hokan aau,duct tunnel
The great tube extends from Ashokan
Dam. up in the Catskills, to Schermerhorn
street and Flatbush avenue, Brooklyn.
Eventually it will extend 20 Staten Island.
The entire distance is about ITO miles.
The tunnel. which runs all the way many
hundred feet underneath the surface OF the
earth, already has cost more than Sl2e'-
600. 900. When completed II will have
cost sl62 100000. and perhaps more be-
cause Of expenditures imposed on the city
by the state Legislature
The workmen ia shaft No were
elated yesterday when they descended TO
make ready the borings for the hnal oiasts
The work in building the tunnel had taken
the l;rerer part of nine years, with from
1900 to $4,000 men daily laboring at II
1T had cost the lives of about 2s3 men
and the injuries of s.s33 men.
The last barrier remained between SHAFT
No and shaft No. 10. The men. working
IN shaft No. Q, had bored tube reaching
south 3.7oO feet and north 1900 feet
Nine feet OF rock remained to the north
before the entire passage through the
saueduct would be continuous.
Formal Ceremony Tomorrow.
The aim OF r. W. Armstrong, engineer
In charge of the shaft, was TO break down
the barrier except for small shoulder
which would be blasted away tomorrow
at noon by Mayor Mitchell Accordlnsiy
many borlnss were made in the rock AT
distance OF twelve inches, aud beginning
at 6:l5 O'Clock and lasting for more IMAM
an hour and a half, a series of blasts fol-
ltwcd When the workmen MADE thelr
way through the smoke they found that
tho rock had been torn away. and soon
with "A little bit of work II was possioie
10 crawl through TO shaft No. 10.
The formal completion OF the tunnel
excavation will take place at noon TO-
morrow, when Mayor Mitchell, j. Waldo
Smith chief engineer OF water supply.
mud l., C. Brink. general superintendent of
the pittsbUrE Construction company, WI
ga down into the shaft In company with
urnu. n.nt citizens and city officials. Inc
Nayor vii push the button setting OFT
o., mail blast After that there remains
the work of opening the aqueduct whicn
will take more than a year.
After the bias ing of yesterday morn
ing a holiday WAS declared until tonight.
The wprhmeu taking look 1T the ef-
fo.-+ of tho blast gave cheer ana then
rushed To- The bottom of the shaft where
thy enjoyed refreshments at the expense
a. the contracting company and then re-
c,i,cd assurances OF an extra days pay
Worlds Longest Tunnel.
Thu. tunnel. which Is the longest In the
world RANGES In diameter from ii to IL
feet. Engineers do not hesitate to COM
pare the work in many ways with the
building of the Panama Canal, pointing
out that the canal, except for the Culc-
bra cut. did not furnish so many and
diverse engineering problems as has the
aqueduct
The work OF digging through many
varied geological formations presented
difficulties and added greatly to the ca
pense OF construction. Innumerable test
horings were necessary to show the con-
tractors what they might expect next
Seventeen and one-half miles OF the
tunnel between Yonkers and Brooklyn arc
through solid rock The carrying OF the
tunnel under the Hudson River was n
difacult task. The tunnel. in .iphor
shape. drops down 1900 feet on the west
side of the river, crosses underneath the
again, gradually rising to point within
several hundred feet of the earth's sur
face.
To make way for the new water sys-
tenn that beginning in 1915, will give
New York 250.0O0o00 gallons OF water
daily and ultimately "A supply OF 0oo,ooo,'
600 gallons. eight villages, with tota
population of 5000 persons, We're RACED
Twenty-eigtr hundred bodies were re-
moved 6om village cemeteries in the
watershed and buried elsewhere, SiNteef
miles Of the Ulster and Delaware Rail
road were moved
The proposed system includes foui
reservoirs chief OF which is the Ashokai
reservoir, twelve miles long and from
one-half TO three miles wide. The Ken
sico storage reservoir is large enough u
hold a supply for the city for fifty days
The PIN View reservoir which IL tc
regulate the changing pressure from thu
day TO night demands, IL one-forteth al
large as Ashokan, while the Silver Lake
reservoir on Staten Island will be reached
by extending the tunnel under the Mar