table matter, sands, clays, alternating 50 feet; sand and gravel, 10 feet; to rock, 70 feet.
College Place—Surface, 20 feet; stratified sand and gravel, 60; in all 80 feet.
Fulton Market—Made ground, 15 feet; stratified sands, blue clay, river mud, 115 feet; in all 130 feet.
Hall's Hotel, north of Fulton Market—Made ground, clay, mud and gravel; to rock, 126 feet
City Hall—90 feet to rock.
New Church Street—86 feet; quick-sand.
A very deep bank of sand covers the region along Park Row; the former Herald building, Western Union building, the office of the Times and Tribune were
all erected on this sand. The dry, pure sand affords a useful
foundation, but when mingled with clay it becomes one of the most
treacherous; pressure developing slipping surfaces in all directions.
The
Welles Building, lower Broadway, rests upon a hard pan or clay (?) in
which were found the bottoms of old wells. Excavations were here made
through quick-sand, and the same stratum was encountered in the
Western Union Building in Broad Street. Builders identify an irregular
water-course flowing as far north as 18th Street; again at 15th Street
and 5th Avenue ; again at the Jefferson Market Court House, 8th Street
and 6th Avenue, and again at Spring Street. This continuity may be
questioned, but the quick-sand is a very disagreeable fact, a head of
water keeping it mobile and fluid.
St. Francis Hospital, 5th Street—100 feet to rock.
Rivington
and Columbia Streets—Old well, 20 feet; quicksand, 10 feet; marsh mud
and clay, 20 feet; gray clay, 10 feet; to rock, 60 feet.
Foot of Jefferson Street—Mud, 10 feet; sands, gravel and clay, 40 feet; total, 50 feet.
Allen
and Hester Streets—Old well, 40 feet; quick-sand and gravel, 20 feet;
clay, 2 feet; coarse gravel and sand, 5 feet; to rock, 67 feet.
Centre and Reade Streets—Coarse gravel, 30 feet.
Tombs—Made ground, 40 feet; black mud, 30 feet; blue clay, 5 to 10 feet; gravel to rock, 80 feet; in all, 155 feet.
Grand
and Wooster Streets—Made ground, 40 feet; mud, clay, sand and vegetable
matter, 20 feet; blue clay, 6 feet; coarse sand and gravel, 6 feet; to
rock, 72 feet.
Bleecker Street and Broadway—Stratified sand and gravel; 42 feet to rock.
