On this enterprise, for
example, men working from mean level to a depth of 50 feet received $3
for an eight-hour day. From 50 to 70 feet they worked but six hours and
received $3.75. From 90 to 105 feet they worked in three shifts of one
hour each, and received $4.25. And while they were placing concrete to
seal the working chamber there was an additional allowance of fifty
cents a day.
The chief danger of caisson work is the "bends," or "caisson disease."
In the caisson a man works under high air pressure. When he comes out,
the pressure on the fluids of the body is reduced, and this sometimes
causes the formation of a gas bubble in the vascular system. If this
bubble reaches a nerve-center it causes severe pain, similar to
neuralgia; if it gets to the brain it causes paralysis. Day after day
men will go into the caisson and come out without trouble, but sooner or
later from 2 to 8 per cent. of caisson workers are affected. Of 320
"sand-hogs" who labored in the caissons of this bridge, three died of
paralysis, and of course a number of others had slight attacks of the
"bends," in one form or another.
The bridge, when we visited it, was more than half completed. On the
Memphis side the approaches were almost ready, and the steel framework
of the bridge reached from the shore across the front pier, and was
being built out far beyond the pier, on the cantilever principle,
hanging in the air above the middle of the stream.
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