100 CONSTRUCTION 



referred to was furnished by Mr. J. A. Ridgway, Secretary 

 of the Board of Park Commissioners, and the description 

 is from the 32d annual report. 



By Drag Scraper. For very short hauls, not above 

 100 feet, the drag scraper can be used to good advantage. 

 The soil must first be broken by plow or by pick. This 

 work is very hard on the horses, as they are not allowed 

 the regular breathing spell which obtains in all other work 

 with the exception of that done by the excavating grader 

 and wheel scraper. 



By Wheel Scraper. For hauls from 100 to 300 feet the 

 wheel scraper may be used providing that the ground is 

 level and the cut is fairly uniform. No other class of work 

 is as hard on the horses as this, and drivers should be in- 

 structed to stop them occasionally. A bucking team must 

 sometimes be hitched on the pole in front of the other 

 team in order to load the scraper. (See Fig. 27, page 83.) 



At Westside Park, Newark, N. J., peculiar methods 

 were adopted for the excavation of an artificial lake by 

 reason of the unusual character of the material removed. 

 Below a surface crust of topsoil about a foot thick was 

 encountered a deposit of muck consisting entirely of vege- 

 table matter, absolutely free from sand and clay. The 

 excavation reached a depth of 8 or 9 feet, though in some 

 places the muck extended downward for 35 feet. The 

 excavated material was used as topsoil and supported 

 phenomenal growths after a year's decomposition. To 

 remove it three methods were adopted first, by means 

 of derricks; second, by means of tram cars; and third, 

 by the assistance of a traveling cableway. In Figure 35, 

 page 109, are shown three derricks with the black muck in 

 adjacent piles. This of course had afterwards to be dis- 

 tributed over the finished subgrade. In the background is 



