Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1901 — LIKE A SECOND HELL GATE. [ARTICLE]

LIKE A SECOND HELL GATE.

Baa Francisco Fee* Duplicate of New - York Explosion. Thirty tons of nitrogelatine were exploded under Arch Rock, in San Francisco Bay, the other day, and thousands of spectators on shore three miles away wity nested the spectacle, the greatest of its kind since the destruction of Hell Gate in 1878. Two acres of solid rock were lifted 300 feet into the air by the mighty force of the " explosion, and when the maelstrom of foam and swirling waters had subsided Arch Rock, always a menace to the lives of men ami ships, had disappeared from view The thousands of persons who lined the shore three miles away expected a heavy shock, a sudden upheaval of rock and sea, and a tremendous concussion which might possibly throw them from their feet. Biit it was not in this way that the force of the explosion was to illustrate its intensity. With no premonitory signal or shock, the smooth green waters of the bay began to rise. There vtcre shouts of wonder, which increased when an instant later a great bulk of milky white foam—surrounding the pyramidal base of Arch Rock for severs. 1 hundred feet in all directions —begau to climb slowly into the air, completely hiding the rock. There was no tossing of tons of water high into the sunlight. The great bulk of green water, capped with foam, rose almost majestically into the air—2oo, 300 feet—and thm still higher. It wus like a great black and-jrreen storm cloud crested with vapor. The cloud of water seemed to hover an instant when it bad reached its greatest elevation. And it was at this instant that the tremendous force exerted by the thirty tons of nitrogelatine was seen and appreciated. For, as the mass hesitated before its fall, great pieces of rocks could lie seen tumbling about in the smothering volume of water 300 feet and more above the surface of the bay. Then the huge bulk settled slowly back into the bay and the spot occupied by Arch Rock ever since ■the memory of the oldest inhabitant began was marked only by a slowly revolving mass of white foam. It took many months of work, with specially invented tools to drill and cross drill the thousands of holes in the base of Arch Rock, but the culmination lasted only a minute, perhaps two. The explosion is said to be the greatest blast ever set off in this country. The blowing up of Hell Gate, in the harbor of New York, in IS7B. consmueil a greater quantity of powder, but it was block powder, which did not have the destructive effect of the modern explosives.