Quicksand Delays Work

Hutzel & Co. have a contract for building a sewer on William street with which they are having a good deal of trouble and in which their losses are beginning to look like the majorly given the opposition ticket at the school election yesterday.

The trouble has all been caused by , quicksand and it has poured into the trench so rapidly and in such quantities that it was impossible to keep the ditch clear long enough to lay the tiles. Finally Mr. Hutzel conceived of a plan whereby the trouble could be avoided. He had made a sheet-iron box about six feet long and eighteen inches deep, which is the width of the ditch. At one end the lower side of the box is cut away to permit the entrance of the tile. This box is then put down in the trench, over the end of the tile already laid, and it serves to keep back the quicksand until another section is laid, when it is moved forward and the operation repeated. With this arrangement the contractors are enabled to make fair progress with their job.