| Date. | Distance | Progress. | |
| Nov. | 1, 1865, | 200.8 | |
| Dec. | 1, 1865, | 220.1 | 19.3 |
| Jan. | 1, 1866, | 232.5 | 12.4 |
| Feb. | 1, 1866, | 250.7 | 18.2 |
| Mar. | 1, 1866, | 264.1 | 13.4 |
| Apr. | 1, 1866, | 280.9 | 16.8 |
| May | 1, 1866, | 297.1 | 16.2 |
| May | 5, 1866, | 300.5 | 3.4 |
| June | 1, 1866,[A] | 300.5 | |
| July | 1, 1866,[A] | 300.5 | |
| Aug. | 1, 1866,[A] | 300.5 | |
| Sept. | 1, 1866, | 311.9 | 11.4 |
| Oct. | 1, 1866, | 331.1 | 19.2 |
| Nov. | 1, 1866, | 354.0 | 22.9 |
| Dec. | 1, 1866, | 377.0 | 23.1 |
[A] Work suspended to put in new hoisting apparatus.
The present hoisting apparatus is expected to be sufficient to finish the shaft. It has two wire ropes, each 1,260 feet long. The time for a round trip is seven minutes. The engine here is of 100 horse-power. The blacksmith shop contains two forges. At the small machine shop the repairs required here are made, as also some repairs for the West Shaft.
The Central Shaft, though designed to aid in ventilating the tunnel, was intended also to accelerate its construction by affording to the process of excavation four faces instead of two during some portion of the work; and the former chairman of the commissioners expected by the aid of machine-drilling, the shaft might be completed in one year from the time such drilling should commence within it. In this anticipation, ten vertical drilling machines were constructed to work in the shaft area and a compressor with two cylinders was provided to furnish the power for operating them. The want of drilling machines at the East End became so urgent, that these vertical ones were changed to horizontals, and used at that point, and the sinking of the shaft by hand-drilling still continues. But if the experiments now in progress at the East End with the new drilling machine shall demonstrate its superiority over hand labor, the machine will doubtless be introduced into the shaft.
West Shaft.
This shaft has an area of about 8 by 13 feet, and was excavated by Messrs. H. Haupt & Co. Its depth is 316 feet.
The buildings here used by the State are the West Shaft house, the New Shaft building, a blacksmith shop containing two forges, a powder-house, a horse-shed, ash-house and tank-house. The buildings owned by the State and leased to operatives are a boarding-house and four old shanties built by H. Haupt & Co., four first-class shanties, eight common shanties, and a double cottage. The buildings at the West End, are connected on the books with those at the West Shaft, and will be here enumerated. They consist of a carpenter's shop, time-keeper's office, a blacksmith shop containing one forge, tool-house, powder-house, horse-shed, brickyard shed, brickyard, engine-house, artesian wells Nos. 3 and 4, buildings, and two-thirds of a barn, which are occupied by the State. One boarding-house, store, one-third of a barn, the Harrington farm-house, barn and out-buildings, twenty-seven common shanties and brickyard boarding shanty. These buildings, with part of blacksmith shop, part of carpenter's shop and time-keeper's office, are rented to operatives and to Mr. Farren, the contractor for constructing the brick arch.
| The cost of the structures, as reported in July, at both places, was | $35,550 94 |
| As reported in November, | 40,010 13 |
This large increase was mainly occasioned by the construction of a double cottage and necessary buildings at the brickyard and West End.
The amount of rents at these two points is $2,462.60 per annum. Fifteen of the tenements at the West End are leased to Mr. Farren, in accordance with his contract.