His First American Success.
He made his first notable success in the construction of the East River gas tunnel. It was a difficult piece of work, for instead of the river-bed of solid rock that was supposed to exist, it was found that the bed was full of fissures through which flowed the mud and water of the river. The contractors wished to give the bore up and try one fifty feet deeper. Jacobs refused to do it, and the board of directors of the company, after listening to his arguments, sided with him.
"Can it be done at the present depth?" he was asked.
"Give me the men and plant, and I'll put it through myself," he answered.
The contractors sued the company and produced a score of experts to prove that the tunnel could not possibly be built in the way Jacobs wanted it built.
While the courts were considering the question Jacobs kept right on digging. He had to encounter difficulties that would have turned most engineers back. But in the end he pushed the bore through, and the courts, with this evidence before them, decided against the contractors. He built the tunnel big enough for trolley-cars in case it might be wanted for that purpose, and he constructed it so solidly that none of the silt or water of the East River has been able to filter in.