Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Books and Periodicals
Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 423
ZS
.
{ 4 .
80 THE “STEAM PADDY.”
more than wide trenches, with a perpendicular bank
on either side, perhaps forty or fifty feet high, and
on the brink of these stood the houses, to which access
was gained by ladders and temporary wooden stairs,
the unfortunate proprietor being obliged to go to the
expense of grading his own lot, and so bringing himself down to a level with the rest of the world. In
other places, where the street crossed a deep hollow,
it formed a high embankment, with a row of houses
at the foot of it, some nearly buried, and others
already raised to the level of the street, resting on a
sort of scaffolding, while the foundation was being
filled in under them.
The soil was so sandy that the hills were easily
cut down, and for this purpose a contrivance was
used called a Steam Paddy, which did immense execution. It was worked by steam, and was somewhat
on the principle of a dredging-machine, but with only
one large bucket, which cut down about two tons of
earth at a time, and emptied itself into a truck placed
alongside. From the spot where the Paddy was thus
walking into the hills a railway was laid, extending
to the shore, and trains of cars were continually
rattling down across the streets, taking the earth to
fill up those parts of the city which were as yet under
water.
Two or three years later, in’54, when an alteration
was made in the grade of some of the streets, large
brick and stone houses were raised several feet, by
means of a most ingenious application of hydraulic