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Updated: May 12, 2025
M. de Luc has given a picture which is very proper to assist our imagination in contemplating a more ancient state of this earth, although in this he has a very different end in view, and means to show that the world, which we inhabit at present, is of a recent date. It is in the 32d letter of his Histoire de la Terre, which I beg leave here to transcribe.
While we were yet talking two mounted, armed men, came suddenly around a bend in the road, and galloped down to where we were standing, each with a drawn pistol, and a carbine slung over his shoulder. Dick Hancock the Sergeant, asked, to what command do you belong? 32d Georgia I answered. Where are you going? To Murphy to see my sister; giving him a ficticious name. Let me see your pass said he.
On the evening of the same day, the 32d Regiment was pushed forward to the same position, while the searchlights were playing over the plain and on the mountain sides, and dazzling the eyes of the sentries who were keeping a sharp lookout for the enemy from various ambushes.
The prices quoted for excavation included placing the material on scows supplied by the Railroad Company at the pier at the foot of West 32d Street, on the North River; there was a clause in the contract, however, by which the contractor could be required to make complete disposal of all excavated material at an additional unit price, and this clause was enforced on January 1st, 1909, when about 94% of the excavation had been done.
The central rock core was about 36 ft. wide on the top and 45 ft. wide on the bottom, and at the center of 32d Street it was about 42 ft. high. It was the original intention to excavate a sufficient width of the sides of the avenue to erect six rows of the permanent steel viaduct, 5 ft. from center to center, and this was done on the south portion of the work.
In order to get the material to the pier, the contractor had excavated a cut under Ninth Avenue which came to the grade of 32d Street about midway between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and a trestle was constructed from this point over Tenth Avenue and thence to the pier. A 30-ton steam shovel was brought to the south side of the work, and commenced operating on July 9th, 1906.
Fiske refers to the magnificent one with which he lighted up Philadelphia last autumn, during the electric exhibition in that city. One night he went to the tower of the Pennsylvania railroad station and watched the light stationed at the Exhibition building on 32d street.
At three points south of 32d Street and at one point north of 32d Street near Tenth Avenue, cuts were made in the rock to sub-grade, and from these cuts, together with the cuts on the west side of Ninth Avenue, all widening out was done and the excavation was completed.
It was a conflict having all the horrors of Indian warfare, as poor Colonel O'Brien, tortured to death through the long hot afternoon of that same day, learned in agony. The mob in the street had not ventured on anything more offensive than jeers and curses, but when Carpenter's command reached 32d Street it was assailed in a new and deadly manner.
Later, during construction, when excavating westward under 33d Street from Fifth Avenue, the surface of the rock was broken through, disclosing quicksand; within the next few days trial drill holes through the tunnel roof at 32d Street and Fifth Avenue showed a thin cover with quicksand above it.
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