THE" SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTtTAXO, OCTOBER 21 1906.
42
tpjr&ii farm JLjy
MEW
JTpy T Dangerous Vocation for Men
"Sand Hogs" Working Under
the. Bed of the WHlamette'River for
Pier Foundation.
liiL WhoLabc
All Day in SuMqueous
Compressed Air.
SMWmmA
277)
IT
ILJjn R1US
BY C. H. WTLAJAiia
ORXNO- It way slowly down In the
river bed below Swan Island, de
vouring the mud at the bottom, feel
ing along carefully. Inch by Inch, In Its
search for a solid foundation to rest upon,
the first caisson for the "Willamette River
bridge of the Portland & Seattle Railway
la being driven.
The caisson Itself la a big, pier-shaped
maaa of heavy timbers . and Iron bolts,
Riled In with concrete. But at the bottom
of this huge. 900-ton structure, men are
working In a little compartment. Into
Which air la constantly pumped to keep
the water out and the men alive. '
In the chamber below the river bed the
men work' like badgers, digging up the
mud and clime with their hands. They
ere on their knees In the yellow water,
and plastered with the muok which gives
them an animal color, they look like
Strange, Silurian monsters, half beast, half
flan.
Their work consists of feeding the end
of a hungry hose, called the pump, which
eats sand and muck with relish. It sucks
the solution up and carries It to the top
of the caisson, where It is blown out like
a stream from a fire hose. '
The two-lnoh hose the men feed with
mud Is -Insatiable. The reason that It is
blways swallowing and is never satlefled
Is that the air in the little space below
the bed of the Willamette is compressed
until It exerts a pressure of ten pounds to
the square inch above the usual atmos
pheric pressure that one Is familiar with
everywhere.
Life Always In Danger.
This same air pressure is the best friend
of the men working down there with 900
tons of concrete. Iron and timbers hang
ing over their heads like the sword of
(Damocles. For such a small thing might
disarrange the plans of the engineers, and
tny one of a dozen little things would
mean "curtains' for the pressureman, as
lie. Is politely oalled, or just plain "sand
bog," If you would be his friend.
Meanwhile, he never thinks about these
things, or, if he does, he never shows It.
Ills work Is to feed the end of that hose
with mud and muck and mire. If some
body blunders, as he often does. It Is up
to the "sandhog" to drown helplessly.
This happens, too, but If tie dies he does
It with his back to the wall, decently,
ls a man should. Or, if he whimpers and
cowers, no one knows It, for In that little
chamber fortified with timbers and con
crete, he cannot make himself heard, no
darter how hard he tries.
Breathing Compressed Air.
A little Journey down Into that hole
(Under the river gives the uninitiated a
sufficient number of thrills. First, one
climbs into an Iron tubing Just big enough
to admit a man.. A. little iron ladder is
bolted to one Bide. You back down elow
Ip, and in a minute it Is pitch dark. Boon
somebody whom you have newer met you
learn later It Is the first locktender yells
In one ear to flatten yourself against a
side of the tube and stand on certain des
ignated places, so he can open a trap
door under your feet. You hear two sharp
blows on the iron tubing, and a door
closes further down. The man beside you
opens his door and the air screeches
through with a whistle that deafens you.
f&ion you go down this same ladder to
another locktender and another door, and
the process is repeated, the first door hav
ing been bolted down. This time your
bead feels queer and the ears ring.
"Hold your nostrils and swallow
hard. la the command of the lock
tender. This equalizes the pressure on
the ear drums and you can hear again.
Boon you see a glimmer of el ec trio ln
candescents below and you emerge, feet
first, Into the working chamber of the
roalsson. You now stand In the mud
(below the river's bed, 24 feet below the
-Burfaoe of the 'Willamette.
On the Bed or the River.
Here you see the sandhogs at work.
IThey are original muck-rakers, on all
"Tours, with their eyes on the end of
'.the hose which they they are stuffing
-With sand and mud. On their knees in
tlw mire, they are paddling the stuff to
the end of that insatiable hose, which
Japs It up hungrily. The lights gleam
mistily through the room, where the
fn!r is at such a pressure that one
can't whistle.
A man's heart action Increases per
ceptibly, and, although It is rather
tchilly, as compressed air chills things,
you perspire freely and wonder why.
tiOne of the artists who came with me
feels nauseated and his nose bleeds.
The clapper valve slobbers com
fireseed air, olanglng at every throb
,cf the engine up above; you can. hear
.workmen on the top of the caisson
-."hammering on more timbers, but their
blows sound a long way off. You know
the man In the engine-room on the
machinery barge moored alongside the
caisson is watching his engine as a
mother keeps guard over her baby, and
that therefore there can be no falling
of the air supply, but Just the same one
thinks how nice it is to see the open
eky and visions are apt to corns up
of . caisson accidents you have read
about.
Aiming for a Hard Foundation.
The foreman pokes around quite as
If he likes It, telling the men where to
work out the mud next, and directing
the settling of the cutting edge of the
caisson. . He carefully examines the
mud, for it Is like a sailor's chart to
liim. and tells Just how deep he is. The
caisson Is aiming for a stratum of hard
cement gravel which lies 40 feet be
low low water. The caisson Is intend
ed to Imbed Itself in this layer, which
offers solid footing for the million
Hollar steel bridge.
AX the bottoms of the holes dug out
by the sandhogs, the water Is seeping
In from the river, but at the cutting
edge the air Is bursting out every crev
ice It can find, for, although a caisson
Is calked with oakum as carefully as a
palling ship, this Is not to keep the
water out. but the air In. The pres
sure of the air Inside must be greater
than that of the water outside, or the
caisson cannot work. If the ajr falls
the water will come In and drown you,
end this, too, makes you friends with
that clanging valve that lets In the air
from the compressor up above.
Although it is stst aad, slimy- down
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WHERE THE All? COMPRESSORS ARE H0U5ED
ore, things burn with a readiness
never seen outside of compressed a'r.
A timber will take fire with" remark
able suddenness if It has an opportun
ity. The large amount of oxygen In
the air readily aids fires. Sometimes
the flame from a candle will catch on
a timber and the fire may dart fnto a
crack and ignite the okum calk
ing. It may smolder there for days
unknown to the workmen until it eats
away' the three-foot wall that, is a
barricade against the river. If this" is
discovered before an accident comes,
the only thing to do is to "drown" the
caisson.
When It Gets Extra Hazardous.
After one has been In that little cham
ber down In the ooie of the river bed for
a short time, he Is quite ready to come
out. After being locked through the com
partments, he Is mighty glad to see the
gray of daylight show at the top of the
tube.
Pier R, for which the caisson is sinking,
will be anchored to the hard gravel layer,
when it is reached, a few weeks in the
future, by tons and tons of concrete that
will fill the chamber where men are now
working. Behind the working chamber con
crete is being poured in as the caisson
sinks, so that when finished It will be a
solid pier of concrete, with three feet of
timbers on the outside. The timbers will
end at five feet below low water and the
pier above water will be faced with orna
mental granite blocks.
As the caisson sinks, increased air press-
ure Is required, and the men work ahorter
shifts and the pay Increases in propor
tion to the depth. Now they work eight
hour shifts. In the deeper workings, the
men will come up with their noaes stream
ing with blood. Some may be attacked
with the "bends," but no matter how
hazardous the work is, there are always
men ready to accomplish It.
The deepest known caisson driving was
done in Australia, where men worked at
a depth of 108 feet. A pier In the East
River, New York, also comes near the
depth of the Australian work. A press
ure of 45 pounds to the square Inch' is be
lieved to be the limit of human endur
ance, and shifts of one hour only are
worked in such conditions. The regular
scale of wages for caisson workers does
not recognize anything below 90 feet, this
being the greatest depth that men are
willing to risk the lives of others unless
some extraordinary circumstances make
it necessary to go deeper still.
There are many risks the caisson work
er takes In his extra hazardous vocation.
There is always danger of an accident to
the air supply. The utter helplessness of
the pressure men when anything happens
makes the situation ail tne more learrui.
An accident occurred some time ago in
the East when something happened to the
air supply and the men made a wild
scramble for the tube to get out of the
death trap. In their mad rush they
lammed the door to the air lock, and, im
prlBoned in the narrow tube, drowned like
rats in a trap:- When nelp came it was
only by cutting the dead men to pieces
that they could be taken out.
OXtentlmes a caisson turns over while
men are worklne in the chamber at the
bottom. This Is caused by too little weight
on the caisson and too strong an air
Dressure below or by a tilting of the cais
son because of the excavation of too much
dirt on either side. A combination or
such unfortunate mischances usually
cause accidents of this kind. When this
happens, the sandhogs drown as a matter
of course.
Apaln, the strong air pressure In the
working chamber may cause a "blow
out." when the air forces itself through
the mud below the cutting edsje and es
capes In a monster bubble at the surfare
of the river. This happens when the
earth is dug away ahead of the lower
beam of the caisson and the pressure of
air breaks through the earth wall. After
such an accident, the water usually rushes
bark and drowns the workers lr the cais
son. Peculiar blowouts sometimes occur.
Workmen have been Mown bodily through
the mud at the river bottom and shot up
to the top of the water. Inclosed In the .
big bubble of compressed air that would
brook no restraint and have escaped un
harmed. Such a case occurred In Boston.
Another recent one was in New York. A
workman in the shield which was being
driven for a tunnel under the East River
was suddenly Bhot out of the tunnel by a
blowout, and he gasped with surprise
when he found himself at the top of the
water unhurt. While he was wondering
what had happened, a passing boatman
pulled him into a skiff with a boathook.
It is not often that caisson accidents
end so happily, and the responsibility for
the lives of their men is a heavy one io
engineers directing caisson work.
Produces Slystcrlous Disease.
But more perilous far than the occa
sional accident is the mysterious, dread
disease, the "bends." which Is still a
puzzle to physicians and for which no
remedy has been found. It acts as a
temporary paralysis of parts of the body,
and is very painful. After several at
tacks, caisson paralysis, a permanent dis
ability often results.
A peculiar feature of the bends is that
while In compressed air workmen do not
suffer from it. but as soon as they reach
the surface they are taken with the most
violent cramps and pains. The disease Is
supposed to be brought on by the pressure
of air cutting off the circulation. When
the pressure is released, great pain fol
lows. A pneumatic caisson Is no place for
workmen who are not in good health, or
who are not level-headed. Oftentimes the
lives of the whole crew are imperiled by
the actions of some foolhardy pressure
man. In building a bridge across the St.
Lawrence at Quebec a wnoie crew nar
rowly escaped drowning because a num
ber of French Canadians on the work de
termined to whip one of their fellow
workmen.
The Canadians were not experienced in
caisson work, but they held a grudge
aKalnst an older man in the party and
suddenly pounced upon him and beat him.
In the scuffle that followed the end of
the pump was thrown out of the water
and the air rushed screeching out of the
pipe that usially carries water and mud.
This lowered the pressure and we r
poured in from the river. The fighters
were deep in water before they noticed
their plight, and, becoming alarmed, re
leased their victim, who knew the remedy
and saved the lives or me c.
Musings
for Three
Minutes
BY MARCUS W. BOBBINS.
IF you wish to be a success in this
world, hire a barker with a mega
phone. It will Increase the gate re
ceipts. Get the crowd to coming your way
and It will be but a short time before
you can be lolling around In a Morris
chair, drinking mineral water and
taking a sea voyage to the Sandwich
Tianr!. Don't get them, and It means
that you have to get up early to catch
the first trolley down town, have a
glass of beer and free lunch for your
dinner, and get baldheaded footing col
umns under a gas light.
But getting the crowd, that is tne
question. The hardships or tne eariy
pioneers is not in it with this modern
problem. The old settler can .give you
all the harrowing details of how the
Indians once chased him half way
across the state, or how at one time
be got snowed in on a prospecting
trip and nearly starved to death he
re he could get out. Tnese stories
are ofttlmes halrraislng and make you
hold your breath and wonder tnat me
poor man ever lived to tell the tale.
But getting and keeping the crowd
beats them all. There Is often Just as
much excitement In running a corner
grocery and trying to keep from going
bankrupt as there was in being chased
by the Indians. Then again a fellow
can get a reasonable amount of trou
ble out of trying to corner the wheat
market or going long on Amalgamat
ed. He can get enough to cause him
to sit up nights and do some figuring.
Once get the crowd and you are all
right. You can be nominated Gover
nor of New York, President of the
United States or Constable of the pre
cinct. To get the crowd you have got
to attract their attention, and noise is
the great American method. The scale
keeps on rising higher and higher each
year and if it goes on much longer
we might Just as well live in a boiler
factory. The billboards are getting
bigger and bigger and the scareheads
In the newspapers larger and larger.
If these latter keep on growing, they
will have to be run as a separate edi
tion. The megaphone is typical of our
present age. In fact, it might properly
be classed- as the megaphonlc age.
Everybody shouts from the housetops,
and these are not any two-story adobe
affalrB, but are 14 to 20-story steel
skyscrapers. It is a long ways down
to the ground, and that has a tendency
to make the shouting a little bit stren
uous and the mixture of the sounds is
somewhat confusing.
The travelers along the sidewalk get
a Jumble of sounds about Alkali Ike's
Soap being best for the complexion:
that the Guaranteed Rebate Railroad
is the shortest route to Chicago, both
going to and coming from I can ap
preciate the desirability In the latter
case); that William Ward or some oth
er fellow will save the country, pro
vided you elect him to Congress.'
Thus the changes are rung, from
face powders and automobiles to Cu
ban Generals and reform District At
torneys. Instead of going West, get a mega
phone and commence to holler.
t Grant's Pass, Or,
f