JF Ptak Science Books Post 19
- “A Sharp, but Not Loud Retort”—the cross section of the detonation chamber of the largest pre-Alamogordo man-made explosion, 1876
Cruising through a box-full (okay, four boxes full) of the Popular Science Monthly, I came upon the lovely volume for 1876. The November issue (the November 1876 American presidential election bears a very, very close resemblance to the 2000 election) unleashed a bevy of odd, tantalizing articles, demanding their quiet attention: “the Early History of Fire”, “Prenatal and Infantile Culture”, “Is the Development Hypothesis Sufficient?”, “the Nature of the Invertebrate Brain”, and others). Just barely bobbing to the surface, riding the velvet coattails of longer articles was as a note in the “editor’s table”: “The Hell-Gate Explosion.”
Aha!
Hell’s Gate in America (there are bunches evidently in the Netherlands, where term prior to corruption was Hellegat, meaning, well, "Hell Gate") refers to a body of water high up on the East River in NYC. It had, before 1876, been a very contentious bit, with a reef at Hallett’s Point that caused all manner of problems for ships and shipping, helping sink perhaps hundreds of ships over the years since the strait was navigated in the early 17th century.
It came to pass that the Deciding Forces determined that the reef must go. (RIGHT: the 1-inch square image cross section of the tunnels beneath the ship-catcher.)
General John Newton (1823-1895, Civil War brevetted Major General) was placed in charge of removing the mess, a large, 700-foot long ship-sinking croissant, extending 300 feet into the channel, with an area of about 3 acres. Newton worked on the idea for several years and—to the great trepidation and pre-millenial fears of many—decided to blow it up. Actually, he decided to blow it down—he engineered a submerged explosion such that the charges placed in the numerous and long mine shafts drilled and cut the length and breadth of the reef would effectively sink the reef. With some smart thinking and some 50,000 pounds of explosives, he did just that.
Listen to the particulars (and remember, this is 1876, and the waters were treacherous, with ripping currents): after building a coffer dam a shaft was sunk 33 feet below the surface of the water, from which 10 tunnels were opened, having lengths of 21 to 126 feet. The tunnels radiating from the shaft varied from 9 to 22 feet in height, and 9 to 12 feet wide, with 172 supporting pillars, the total length of the tunnels being 4,857 feet plus another 2,568 feet of offshooting galleries—the entire 7,425 feet of tunnel was drilled with 4,427 blasting holes, the explosive agents being connected to 96 galvanic firing batteries by 220,000 feet of wire. The 160 fuses were simultaneously ignited by 23 groups of batteries.
The main plunger was depressed by General Newton’s 2 year old daughter, who was not named.
The action was a success, the honeycombed explosion chambers sort of sinking the 51,000 cubic yards of ship-killer under a low, sulfurous fog. Actually the reef-turned-gravel pit was removed by grapplers, part of the Hell of Hellgate carried away.
All things considered, this little cross-section (about an inch square) doesn’t say much about the biggest man-made explosion south the atomic bomb .
Endnote:
The New York Times screamed the results in a Victorian tremalotto on their front page for 25 September 1876:
"RENDING HELL-GATE ROCKS; THE SUBMARINE MINE EXPLODED. A COMPLETE SCIENTIFIC SUCCESS. THE TERRIFIC RENDING FORCE LIBERATED BY THE FINGER OF A CHILD--A JARRING TREMOR OF THE EARTH, AND A SHARP, BUT NOT LOUD REPORT--IMMENSE GEYSERS OF WATER THROWN UP--THE FORCE EXPENDED MAINLY IN THE WORK OF BURSTING THE REEF--CONFIRMATION OF GEN. NEWTON'S THEORY OF THE EFFECTS OF THE DISCHARGE--THE RUSH OF THE CURIOUS CROWDS--INCIDENTS OF THE DAY THROUGHOUT THE CITY. BEFORE THE EXPLOSION. THE EXPLOSION. AFTER THE EXPLOSION.", The New York Times. September 25, 1876. p. 1
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