Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

274 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. to wring out one’s blankets carefully before rolling up in them for the night. Near by was the big dining-camp, where dwelt the cook and his half-dozen ‘ cookees,’ and where three times a day two hundred ravenous men ‘ wolfed ’ up a plenteous supply of most excellent food; the office camps, inhabited by the contractors and their book-keepers ; and all around in the silent forest, close at hand, little log-shanties held parties of two or three or four men each, mostly Italians, who preferred that way of living to the noise and rough companionship of the crowded camp. “ Long before daylight the men would start down the path, each in turn stopping before the door of the powder-house to pick up a keg of powder, or, if he was Trials unlucky, a box of dynamite, of the ^he iatfer always fell to the last comers, because, besides being packed in a square box which galled the shoulders more than a keg, each package of dynamite weighed 50 lbs. as against the 25 lbs. weight of the keg of powder. “ Then to the work, and perhaps a wait till it got light enough to see to smite the drill fairly on the head. The darkness cleared away slowly. The wet flakes, instead of strik- ing invisibly, could now be distinguished from the air by sight. Next, the timber at the far side of the river loomed out from the river mists, and the mists themselves seemed to clear off and hang like a ceiling across from the trees on one side to the rough, rock on the other. “ Presently the chant arose, and clink ! clink! the hammers went on the drill, stopping every now and then while the drill-holder scraped out the powdered rock from the depths of the hole with a long thin rod flattened at the end. Perhaps the hole was too deep for striking, and then a long churn-drill came into use : lift, half-turn, downward drive ; lift, turn again, and so on, boring its way twenty, or even thirty, feet into the solid rock. “ When a row of such holes had been drilled, and the drilling gang moved on to fresh work, the holes would be all charged with powder, fuses placed in position, and the charges tightly ‘ tamped ’ Blasting the down with clay. Then, while Rock the call, 1 Fire, Fire, F-i-r-e! ’ warned all and sundry to get to cover, the fuses were touched off. A second later the whole face of the rock heaved outwards to the river, and the valley roared with the echoes of the terrific explosion. How the echoes rang, too ! First, concussion of the blast and the near-by echoes of the woods, river, and foggy pall ; then rattle and bang up and down the valley, gradually dying away to nothing, only to start into renewed, life as the sound reached some distant, tremendous precipice, the new crash echoing and re-echoing from every crag that had been awakened by the first explosion, till one would swear that the whole valley was full of big guns, and that an artillery duel was at its height. “ When the big blast had done its work, and the débris had been cleared away, the big boulders must be smashed into fragments of manageable size. “ Accidents there must be sometimes, as in all cases where familiarity has bred contempt, but they were of very rare occurrence. We had two in that camp. In his ‘ shake ’ hut, on the hillside, Accidents, the old ‘ Dago ’ who kept the ' dynamite warm for use was sitting one after- noon, when upon him and his fire descended a rock driven by a distant blast. A big hole in the hillside marked the place where the shack had been. Probably the old man him- self never knew any more of what happened than we did of where he had gone to. “ The other mishap, the result of gross care- lessness, was more serious. Two of the three drill-holes in the end of a ‘ cut ’ were already charged with powder, and the third was being filled, when a little piece of rock fell into the