St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 7/With Men Who Do Things
WITH MEN WHO DO THINGS
BY A. RUSSELL BOND
Author of “The Scientific American Boy” and “Handyman’s Workshop and Laboratory”
Chapter IV
SAND-HOGS
“What I can’t make out,” said Will, who was fussing with something at the wash-basin, “is how they keep the water out of those tunnels under the river.”
“I don't see anything so mysterious about that. They use compressed air to keep the water out, just as in a caisson.”
“Yes, I know, but it is n’t as simple as all that. Now look at this,” and he pushed a glass, mouth down, into the water. Although the glass was completely submerged, the water did not fill it because of the air trapped inside. The water rose to within an inch or so of the top.
“That ’s just like a caisson,” continued Will; “the compressed air in the top keeps the water down, just as Mr. Squires explained. But now watch me turn the glass on the side.” Just as he got the glass near the horizontal, the air went out with a big “gulp,” and the glass filled with water.
“See that! Now how in the world do they keep the air in and the water out, with the end of the tunnel open so that the men can dig away the sand and mud ahead of the tube?”
“That question is too much for me,” I confessed. “We shall have to have a look at the work, and see for ourselves how it is done. I suppose you don't mind going down under pressure again?”
“Mind that! Not a bit!” exclaimed Will. “One little accident is n't going to scare. me away.”
On our way down-town we stopped at the hospital to inquire about Danny. Roach. Although we could n't’see him, we were assured that he was doing nicely, and would be fit for work again in a few days.
When we got down to the tunnel-shaft, we encountered unexpected difficulties. The superintendent would n’t even see us, and we were obliged to go away without a single glimpse inside the yard. The next day, however, we came back armed with a letter of introduction from Mr. Squires. This gave us an audience with Superintendent Brown. But that did not mean admission to the tunnel.
“The rule is strict: ‘no visitors allowed,’” he said. “I wish for the sake’ of my friend Squires that I could let you in. But no one, under any pretext whatever, is allowed in that tunnel, except those actually engaged in the work down there.”
“Would n’t the chief engineer give us a permit?”
“No. Others have tried that, but it was no use.”
“Then there is absolutely no chance of getting in?”
“None that I know of,—unless,” he suddenly added, with a laugh, “unless you would like to go in as ‘sand-hogs.’ Eh, what?”
“Would we like it!” said Will, his eyes sparkling. “Come on, Jim, it ‘ll be a great experience.”
“Now, I warn you,” said the superintendent, “this is n’t going to be a lark! You will have to work hard, and I won't take you on unless you contract to work at least a week; if you shirk or fall down on the job, I will fire you on the spot without a cent of pay. Your wages will be two dollars a day because you are green hands, but if you stick to it, yon may get as much as three dollars and a half a day after a few years’ experience, the same as the rest. How is that for a glittering prospect—eh?”
“I'm game if you are, Will,” I said.
“Report to the doctor, then, and let him look you over,” said Mr. Brown.
“We are safe on that score,” I interrupted, “because we have just been down under pressure in a caisson.”
“Yes, but you must see our doctor, nevertheless. If he says you are O.K.,” continued the superintendent, “you can report to Hughie Smith, the gang boss, at midnight. Be here in time to put on your working togs. We ‘ll supply the boots. You ‘ll have to go on at twelve o'clock sharp, and you work till eight.”
“Do you work here all night?” we asked in surprise.
“Most assuredly we do!” he replied. “There is no day down there in the tunnel; it is just one long continuous night. You ’d better run home now and go to bed, or you won't be fit to work to-night.”
It was n’t exactly what we had bargained for, working nights and sleeping during the day, but we thought we could stand it for a week. We found it very difficult to get to sleep early, and at 10:30 our alarm-clock awakened us after we had put in less than four hours of slumber. It was the hardest thing in the world to shake off our drowsiness, but the spirit of adventure sustained us, and kept us from backing out. We dressed hastily and had a hearty meal in a little restaurant around the corner, and at a quarter to twelve reported to Hughie Smith at the sand-hog house.
PUSHING THE SHIELD THROUGH SILT AND ROCK.
The rock drillers are protected by an overhanging “apron.”
It did n't take us long to put on working clothes and boots. There wassomething weird about the whole affair—the brilliant flaming are lamps here and there casting jet black shadows around the yard; the clank and rattle of machinery; the sound of escaping air; the buckets that came up out of the tunnel, and the swish of the stuff as it slid out into the big hoppers from which it was emptied into carts that hauled it off to fill some low spot in or near the great city. We did n't have much time to muse over what we saw. A whistle sounded, and we assembled at the mouth of the shaft with the other sand-hogs, where checks were handed out. We were no longer known by name, but merely by the numbers on the checks.
The cage that rose suddenly out of the shaft discharged a gang of men, and we took their places. In a moment we were at the bottom of the shaft and stepped out into the tunnel, a huge steel cylinder seventeen feet in diameter. It was fairly well lighted with electric lamps, showingthe heavy steel plating with which it was sheathed. We followed the men down the tunnel, to a sort of bulkhead built across the tube. In this bulkhead were the air-locks, two of them, with doors large enough to admit the trucks on which the mud and sand were carried out from the tunnel heading. The men all crowded into one of the locks. It was a rather long, horizontal cylinder with seats on either side for us to occupy while the pneumatic pressure was turned on. Both doors of the locks were closed, and then the gang boss turned on the air gradually. I could feel the strain on my ear-drums as the air rushed in, although I held my nose and blew as hard as I could. When the air ceased hissing, we knew that the pressure in the lock was the same as that in the tunnel. The foreman then opened the door, and we all trooped out. We had to walk a couple of hundred feet before getting to the shield, The boss stationed his men, and then turned to us. Will had been eagerly waiting for a chance to ask questions. He was full of them, and now he started in; but the boss hushed him up at once.
“Look here, we have n’t any time for any of that! This ain't no tea-party. You are here to work, Do you understand? Take that shovel there and get busy loading this truck. No loafing now!”
Obediently we started work without further words, realizing that we must depend on our eyes to answer our questions. We saw that the tunnel shield was a sort of a drum-like affair with the ends open, but with a diaphragm dividing it in two in the center. There were a number of sliding doors in this diaphragm, through which the men could pass to the outside of the shield, to dig away the soil in front of the tunnel. We found a chance to step through the diaphragm once and see that the front of it was divided into a number of pockets by plates that ran up and down and crosswise. The men worked in the shelter of these pockets, removing the soil in advance of the shield. Our job, however, was inside the shield, loading the trucks with the sand, or “muck,” that was shoveled through the openings in the diaphragm. The trucks, when filled, were hauled away by small electric locomotives, or “dinkies,” as they were called.
We worked hard, sustained by the rich atmosphere; but our muscles were not used to suchlabor, and before long we grew exceedingly tired.Interest in the work about us, however, helped to divert our attention from aches and pains. We observed that the shield was larger in diameter than the lining of the tunnel, and that it fitted over the end of the lining like a cap. We saw also how the shield was moved forward. A number of hydraulic jacks were placed all around the shield between the diaphragm and the lining of the tunnel. Then, when all was ready, the water was turned on in the jacks, forcing the plungers out, and pushing the shield bodily forward a distance of about two feet, or just enough to get in another ring of lining. The work required great care because with the jacks the shield was steered and made to move up or down, or to the right or left, so as to follow the course of the tunnel as planned. The tunnel was being pushed through from the other side of the river as well, and, unless the work followed the survey accurately, the headings would not meet properly at the center of the river. Just how accurately the steering was done we learned many, many months later, when the shields of the two headings met. One of the shields was four inches lower than the other, but otherwise the alinement was perfect. Think of it! Only four inches out, after groveling in the dark through a mile of silt!
The way the lining was set in place was interesting, There was an “erector,” or a sort of hydraulic crane, mounted on the face of the shield, with which the lining plates were picked up and placed in position after the shield had been moved forward, These plates were curved to the arc of the tunnel, and had deep flanges on all four sides through which the bolts were passed that fastened them one to the other. The deep flanges made them very strong indeed.
For four hours we toiled steadily. It seemed eight before the gang knocked off for luncheon, I was disappointed to find that the dawn was only just breaking when we emerged from the tunnel. We had n’t thought about eating, and had brought no lunch-pail. The idea of taking lunch at four o’clock in the morning would have seemed ridiculous to us. Needless to say, the idea was far from ridiculous now. Hot coffee was served in the sand-hog house, but we were ravenous for something more substantial. There were no restaurants open in that vicinity at that time of the morning, One of the men took pity on us and gave us a few bites of his luncheon, for which we were truly grateful.
He was a fine fellow, an old hand at the game, and he knew all there was to know about pneumatic work. He it was who explained our problem of the tumbler.
“It’s simple enough,” he said; “the pressure of the water depends on the depth, and so there is more water-pressure at the bottom of the tunnel than at the top; but there is n't any difference worth mentioning in the air-pressure between the top and bottom of the tunnel. If the material out in front of the tunnel was very soft, and we made the air-pressure heavy enough to keep out the water at the bottom of the heading, it would all escape out of the top; and if the air-pressure was just equal to the water-pressure at the top of the tunnel, the water would pour in at the bottom. Just now the material we are going through is clay-like, and we don’t have to bother very much about differences of pressure at the top and bottom of the tunnel; but when we go through quicksand, with very little ‘cover’ between the shield and the bed of the river, then comes trouble. We don’t dare work out in front of the diaphragm, but must open small shutters in the diaphragm and ‘scoop’ out the sand, That ’s when we are apt to have blow-outs. The air will burst through the fluid sand and boil up. Sometimes a burst of air will make the water shoot up like a geyser from the surface of the river.”
“What happens when you strike a rock?” Will inquired.
“We have to blast it out of the way, The worst trouble comes when we strike a ledge at the floor of the tunnel, and have soft silt or quicksand overhead. We had a job like that in the North River once. A shelf, or ‘apron,’ was built out from the shield, half-way up, virtually dividing the front of the shield into an upper and lower chamber. Under protection of this apron, workmen crawled out in front of the shield, drilled holes in the rock for mild charges of explosive, and then crept back within the shield and set off the dynamite. After that they had to crawl out again and haul the broken rock away. It was slow work, because the operations had to be carried on in cramped quarters, and only a little of the rock could be blasted at a time, Fortunately, there was very little rock to pass through. It was merely a reef in the ocean of silt. Before we struck that reef, we found the material so soft that we did n’t bother to dig it away in front of the shield, but merely pushed the shield ahead through the silt with the hydraulic jacks.”
Our friend was in the midst of his explanations when the signal came to resume work, Our half-hour of respite had seemed like only five minutes. We were aching all over. How could we ever endure the three and a half hours of labor before the next shift came on? Luckily for us, the boss did not pay as much attention to us this time as he did before, and we could ease up a bit on our work without having him bawl out at us to “Git busy there!” every two minutes.
Slowly the hours dragged by, Finally, when it seemed as if we could endure it no longer, the signal to quit was sounded, and we all trooped out. Tired! I was never so tired in all my life, and I was desperately hungry, too. The first thing we did was to hunt up a restaurant, where we devoured such a breakfast as astonished the waiter. Then we went straight home to bed.
INSIDE THE TUNNEL SHOWING THE “ERECTOR,” BACK OF THE HORIZONTAL PLATFORM, RAISING A LINING PLATE TO POSITION.
Chapter V
A MAN GOES SKY-ROCKETING THROUGH THE RIVER-BED
Nothing very exciting occurred until the last day of our contract week, That day started wrong. In the first place, the gang foreman failed to show up, and we went down the shaft without him, taking our regular places. Soon the superintendent came down and appointed one of the more experienced men foreman of the gang. That ‘s where the trouble first started.
We had been having considerable difficulty with boulders in the path of the shield. They had to be broken up before they could be hauled out of the way During the night, an extra large boulder had been encountered,and an attempt had been made to blast it. The blasting had failed to make any material impression on the rock, but it had loosened up the silt and mud overhead so that it was in a very shaky condition. Had our foreman shown up that morning, no doubt he would have learned from the foreman of the night gang just what had occurred, and, accordingly, would have proceeded very cautiously; but we went about our work as if nothing had happened.
Several men were outside of the shield at work in the different pockets. The new foreman climbed up into one of the upper pockets, when he noticed a bad leak at the edge of the “apron.” The apron in this case was a curved steel plate that projected from the upper part of the shield, like the poke of a sunbonnet,and protected the men below from material that might fall on them. It was supported by slanting braces. As soon as he saw the leak, the foreman called the men to bring up bags of sand and hay to choke up the hole. Two men climbed up through the door in the diaphragm with bags of sand. The first one, “Jerry,” was about to hand up the bag, and the other fellow, “Jake,” was right behind him, when suddenly, with a sound like a giant cough, the air burst through the silt above the apron. The tunnel had discharged like a pneumatic gun, The air picked up the men as if they had been straws, and flung them headlong into the mud. I happened to catch a fleeting glimpse of all this while I snatched desperately at something to keep from being blown along with them. At the very same instant, the lights went out, and we were plunged in inky darkness, while we could hear the rush of water pouring into the tunnel, There was a panic at once. Every one started on a mad scramble, stumbling and falling over one another and the various timbers and obstructions, shouting and yelling—a wild run of 400 feet to the locks, Will and I groped our way back as fast as we could, hand in hand, My chum had been knocked down and rendered all but unconscious by an ugly blow an the forehead.
PUTTING UP A SHIELD WHERE THE TUNNEL IS ABOUT TO BREAK OUT OF THE ROCK.
It was net until we had all entered the locks and had actually begun to lock ourselves through that our senses returned to us, We were like the Irishman who swam ashore to save himself first, and then swam back to save the other fellow. The foreman, who had fled with the rest, suddenly remembered the responsibility that rested upon him. Hastily he counted noses, and found that two were missing.
“They must have been caught by the blow-out,” he said; “we must go back to save them if we can.” Candles were procured, and we all went back into the black tunnel.
As we neared the shield, we heard a faint voice calling for help, and we shouted encouragement. The water was rapidly growing deeper, and already it was up to our knees. We found a poor fellow lodged in the mud between the boulder which the night shift had tried to blast and one of the slanting braces of the apron. It was Jake. What had become of Jerry? We could not imagine, We had work enough trying to extricate the man before us, When the blow-out occurred, he was knocked senseless for a time, but then the black water and mud flowing in through the opening made by the outpouring air ran down over his face, and restored him to consciousness. When he came to, all had deserted him; everything was dark, and he was pinioned so that he could n’t escape, while the black torrent flowing down on him nearly drowned him. To make matters worse, as soon as the tunnel had discharged most of its air-pressure in the blow-out, the silt began to press in upon the shield. This threatened slow torture for poor Jake. Slowly but surely the boulder would crush him, He called and called. He knew that it would not take long for the tunnel to fill with such a river of mud flowing into it. Fortunately, he was in the upper part of the heading, and it would take longer for the water to reach him. He had almost given up hope when he heard us coming back. The task of removing him was not so simple. We managed to free his body, after some work, but his legs were firmly held. There was little time left: the water was
rising rapidly.
TWO SHIELDS, PUSHED FROM OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE RIVER, MEETING WITH A PERFECT FIT.
“Come back,” shouted one of the men, “we have got to close the doors in the shield, or the tunnel will be filled.”
“What! and leave that fellow out there!” I cried.
“We can’t get him out anyway, and if the locks are flooded, we can't get out ourselves!” he said, vainly tugging at the doors. In the progress of the tunnel the shield had slowly turned over so that the track of the sliding doors was no longer horizontal, but slanted upward, and the door was too heavy for the man to move alone up the incline,
“CLEAR THROUGH THE BED OF THE RIVER AND UP TO THE SURFACE!”
Things were getting desperate. But at last there was a shout of triumph. The foreman had succeeded in prying loose the rock that held Jake pinioned. It was none too soon; the water was pouring in faster than ever, It had reached the “spring line,” or the center line of the tunnel; that is, it was 81½ feet deep at the shield. Even when walking along the tracks that were elevated above the bottom of the tube, the water was up to our shoulders; and one or two of the shorter men had to swim.
The rescued worker was placed on a plank and floated to the locks. There was no time to think of closing the doors in the shield, besides they were submerged, and so we could not reach them now. If it had n’t been for the grade of the tunnel, the water would have filled it above the level of the locks. As it was, the water was beginning to slop over the sill of the lock as we splashed up to it.
But what of the other victim of the blow-out? We had found no trace of him anywhere, and there was no possibility of making further search for him,
But when we reached the top of the shaft, you can imagine our amazement at seeing the man who had supposedly perished, sitting calmly in the center of an admiring group of reporters, and telling a most astonishing story—such a story as was almost beyond belief! When the tunnel discharged like a great air-gun, he had played the part of a bullet, and had been shot clear through the bed of the river and up to the surface! Two men were in a rowboat under a dock picking up driftwood, when suddenly a screaming, mud-covered object shot up out of the depths, rising clear of the water, and dropping back again with a splash. They were terror-stricken; panic seized them, particularly when the object reappeared and struck out after them, but Jerry’s cries for help brought them to their senses, although it was some time before they realized that he was actually a human being, and not some inhabitant of the lower regions, They pulled the man aboard and brought him to shore. At first Jerry thought he must be badly hurt. He ought to have been hurt in such a sky-rocket trip as that, but after feeling himself all over carefully, he could n’t, for the life of him, find any damage ta his anatomy! So there was nothing for him to do but report back for work!
It was the most sensational incident that had ever happened in tunnel work, and the place fairly buzzed with reporters, Inside of an hour, a breathless newsboy came running up with an armful of extras, which said like hot cakes, and Jerry had the pleasure of reading all about his own curious adventure.
There was no more work done that day. It was the last day of our contract week, and we were more than glad to throw up the job and collect our wages.
Chapter VI
ENGINEER PRICE
“Why, hello! here they are now!” exclaimed the superintendent as he caught sight of us, “Come here, boys, I want to introduce you to Chief Engineer Price.”
“Aha!” said the engineer, “so you are the boys I have been hearing about. I suppose you want to contract for another week’s work, don’t you?”
“Well, not exactly, sir,’ spoke up Will “I don’t think we care for any more tunnel experiences just now. We have had enough to last awhile, but we thought we would stroll down and see how you were going to clear the mud and water out of that tunnel, Jim and I have been trying to figure it out, but we can’t, for the life of us, see how you are going to do it.”
“Well, boys, if I were n’t in such a beastly hurry just now,” said Engineer Price, looking at his watch, “I would like to have a talk with you. You come up to my office to-morrow at one o’clock sharp. I want you to take lunch with me, Here is the address,” and he handed Will his card and was off before we had recovered from our surprise.
Just as the clock struck one the next day, we pushed open the door of the engineer’s rooms, and were promptly shown into his inner office.
“Good morning, boys,” he said cordially, shaking hands with us, “You ’re on time to the minute, I see. There is nothing I commend so highly as promptness. We shall step right out to luncheon and do our talking there.”
The club to which Engineer Price took us was so richly and elaborately furnished that we were quite overwhelmed; but our host soon put us at ease. He wanted to know all about us and what induced us to try our hand at sand-hogging, We told him the whole story from beginning to end.
“And this Uncle Edward, who is he?”
“Why, Edward Jordan, the engineer.”
“What, are you ‘Eddy’ Jordan’s nephew? I used to know him when I was at school.” And he told us a lot of funny yarns about Uncle Edward’s school-days, Finally, when the opportunity offered, Will took occasion to remind Mr. Price that he had not yet told us how he was going to clear out the flooded tunnel.
“Oh, that is not such a very difficult job,” said Mr. Price. “We have located the hole in the bed of the river, and to-morrow, at slack tide, we are going to sink a tarpaulin over it and dump clay on the tarpaulin, That ought to make a pretty effective seal, and then we shall pump the water out of the tunnel and the air into it at the same time. I will give you a pass to see the work if you like.
“Oh, Mr, Ludlow!" called out Engineer Price to a large man with a long, gray mustache who was passing our table. “Sit down here a minute. I want you to meet a pair of very promising young engineers. This is Will, Eddy Jordan’s nephew, and this his chum, Jim. Mr. Ludlow, boys, is the chief engineer of the new East River suspension-bridge.” Then he proceeded to sing our praises to the bridge engineer, much to our embarrassment. “Why, they have been actually groveling in the mud as sand-hogs for a whole week, just to learn something about tunnel work at first hand instead of through books. Such striving after knowledge, such devotion to engineering, should be encouraged. Now, why can’t you arrange to have them shown over your bridge?”
“Why, I should he delighted to,” said Mr, Ludlow. “Call at my office, boys, and | will give you a letter of introduction to Mr. Blanchard, my assistant, who is in immediate charge of the work.”
“Will you, sir?” said Will, eagerly. “Thank you so much. That ’s the very work we wanted most to see.”
And before that luncheon was over, we had met a number of engineers, all of whom took a kindly interest in us, and offered to show us through the various lines of work in which they were engaged.