COLUMBUS CIRCLE ON A RAINY NIGHT: NEW YORK CITY Northward the star of New York's business empire still moves. The financial district is anchored downtown, but "automobile row" has selected as its place in the sun that section of Broadway above and below Columbus Circle, and automobile row has a way of blazing the trail of business into the heart of the residential district of many American cities. Also the gay night throng that once found Times Square the northern boundary of its peregrinations now wanders up Broadway to "The Circle" and Central Park. intervals of five and six feet in these pipes. are nozzles which send up columns of water from forty to sixty feet in the air. Breaking into fine spray, the water descends almost as clean and pure as if it had been raised by evaporation and precipitated again. A fountain three acres. in area, surrounded by deciduous and evergreen trees, is a charming sight and forms a rare introduction to this Gothammade Como. After receiving its air bath, Ashokan water is ready to begin its long journey to New York. The aqueduct first leads it to Kensico Reservoir, 75 miles away, and on the opposite side of the Hudson. WOMEN POLICE PARADING DOWN FIFTH AVENUE: NEW YORK CITY New York's police department faces a tremendous task. The city, because of its great size, the indifference of its citizens to the comings and goings of their neighbors, and the opportunities afforded for having a good time suited to every taste, attracts alike the criminal and those on pleasure bent from everywhere. The war has made a heavy draft on New York's conservators of law and order, but women are proving that they can patrol a beat or collect fares in a street car as well as men. Thus does the economic emancipation of woman receive another boost. Between these two reservoirs four kinds of construction were used. Over approximately level ground, the cut-andcover method was used-a great trench was dug and in it was built a horseshoeshaped conduit of concrete. Where hills interposed, instead of going around them, grade tunnels were built through them. When valleys, creeks, and rivers came in the way, there were three courses open: great masonry aqueducts like those of ancient Rome could be built; steel pipe-lines could be laid on the floor of the valleys; inverted siphons or pressure tunnels could be dug far below the surface through solid rock. Photograph from Norman Thomas and W. W. Rock MADISON SQUARE: THE FLATIRON BUILDING AND FIFTH AVENUE BUILDING Where once stood the Fifth Avenue Hotel, with its "Amen Corner," now towers a great office structure, the Fifth Avenue Building, and the Hoffman House, where the Democrats of the country used to foregather, is only a memory. Where society once reigned supreme, now there are cloak and suit lofts, and Madison Square is little more than a way station twixt the uptown and downtown business districts. A lofty masonry aqueduct was open to danger of destruction; pipe-lines were both expensive and liable to leaks; the tunnel was decided upon. In some places these tunnels go very deep, so deep that the water exerts as much as three and a half tons pressure per square foot. When the aqueduct builders came to the Rondout Creek Valley they met with. a discouraging situation. They found a very poor quality of rock under the valley, with many faults. Their drills slipped through into caverns of unknown depths, and at one place they encountered a spring deep in a rock fissure, which had a flow of 2,000 gallons a minute. There was sulphur present, also, and its fumes seriously inconvenienced the workmen. However, enough grout was put into the spring to drive it out of their way; with channel rings and concrete the rock was made strong where Nature had made it weak; and they steered clear of the caves. This tunnel was only 727 feet below grade, and little attention was paid to it by the public. CARRYING WATER BENEATH THE HUDSON When the Hudson crossing was reached, where the tunnel goes down so deep that the Woolworth Building placed on top of the United States Capitol and surmounted by the Washington Monument would leave only the capstone of the latter showing above the water surface, New York was gloomy and fearful. Failure of the undertaking was freely predicted. Nevertheless, the construction of the spectacular Hudson tunnel was a far easier task than the unnoticed one at Rondout. The Hudson is tunneled 45 miles below Ashokan Reservoir. In the building of this under-the-river tunnel, it was first necessary to ascertain exactly the lay of the solid rock below the river. First, an effort was made to drill down to the surface of bed-rock with drills mounted on scows. But that was a failure. Drills were lost and all sorts of hindrances encountered. Then it was determined to dig a shaft at each side, about 300 feet deep, and from these to drill two V's under the Hudson, one with a broad and the other with a sharp angle. In this way the engineers gained the necessary data about the rock formation. Diamond drills were used. These drills are circular tubes, the lower ends of which are studded with seven black diamonds, costing about $100 each. The drill cuts through the rock like an apple corer through an apple and brings the core to the surface with each stratum in the position in which it was found. Thus the position of the rock was revealed and its density determined. The engineers ascertained that they could put their tunnel under the river nearly 1,400 feet beneath the surface of the water. AQUEDUCT BUILDING, ANCIENT AND Engineering has progressed in great strides since the days when the Romans were building aqueducts. When the Aqua Claudia was under construction a tunnel under a mountain three miles long was necessary, and the chief engineer started work at both ends. He was captured by brigands, and when he was finally liberated he found that his two digging parties had missed one another entirely and were excavating two tunnels instead of one. When the Hudson tunnel was bored the two parties met and were not half an inch out of the way, although the undertaking required the sinking of two pits 1,114 feet deep, from the bottoms of which the tunnel operations were started. The Hudson crossing is about half way between West Point and Newburgh, at Storm King Mountain. Thirty miles nearer the city, on the east side of the river, is Kensico Reservoir, with a capacity of thirty-eight billion gallons-22 gallons for every inhabitant of the earth. This reservoir is four miles long and from one to three miles wide. The water is impounded by a dam thrown across the Bronx River, one of the finest structures of its kind in existence. A third of a mile long, and 307 feet high, it is 235 feet thick at its base and 28 feet thick at its crest. The exposed portion of the down-stream side is made of huge granite blocks. Above Kensico there is what is known as a coagulation plant. Here provision is made for treating muddy water with a harmless coagulant. In flood periods silt is brought down from the watersheds. The problem of building new subway lines in New York is a tremendous one. For instance, Broadway, at Canal street, is only ten feet above sealevel, and the excavation had to be carried down forty-seven feet. Great quantities of water were encountered and at one time twenty million gallons a day, enough to supply a city of 150,000 inhabitants, had to be pumped out with great care, so that no sand was carried along. Because of the head of water, large masses of concrete had to be introduced to keep the subway from floating. Where it crosses the Hudson tubes the two systems had to be linked together with crete sad |