Making Millions Out of Sea Sand
GOOD sand bank for mine," said th
long Islander, aa he looked down
Into the 100-foot pit, where a
core of men were shoveling the
(olden earth Into carta, "and the
dickens take the fold mines."
Long Islanders who live along; the sound
hare been firm In the belief that a sand
bank beats "color" as a moneymaker ever
since a shrewd Quaker restored the for
tunes of lils family by digging up the dune
on the seafront of his farm, loading- it tn
barges and sending It to New Tork, to be
used for building purposes. That was the
Inception of a systematic sea sand Industry
that has brought riches to hundreds of
men and especially to the numerous de
scendants of many of the first white owners
of the land. It was likewise the opening up
of America's biggest, sand field and the be
ginning of the end of "the effort to supply
New York's demand for sand by digging It
up along the beaches around Coney Island
and in upper New Jersey.
The original settlers on Manharaet Neck,
where sea sand fortunes were first made,
and around Hempstead Harbor, where nu
merous sand banks are now being worked
witn as much method as Is a gold mine,
and which have netted their owners ap
proximately J3.OCO.C0O within the last six
years, were Quakers. The Quakers Invai 1
.ably portion their property equally among
their children. Vast farming tracts had
thus become divided into small farms or
mere garden patches fifteen years ago and
many an owner of a few acres of land was
having a hard time making a living.
Among the number was the mun who
started the sand industry. He had a large
family, .two of the children were all but
ready to go to college and he had not the
money to send them; his farm furnished
Just enough to keep him and his supplied
with the necessities.
In the midst of his anxiety over his chil
dren's future he thought of the sand hiil
at the sea end of his property. Then it oc
curred to him that sand is used for build
ing purposes. ' The very thing,": he stid.
"I'll get Ihit sand to New York to.tietiow
and the money that it brings shall educate
my children." .
It did moie. It made the man wealthy,
lie left a will that cave to each of his off
spring an . Inheritance worth noi a few
li ousands of dollars.
ihe (and bank region U full of similar
tiea. There Is the s.ory of the manufac
turer who failed and had left only his an-i-e.tor's
farm, the pride of his heart! and
.hac was heavily mortgaged and In danger
ot being taken from him. He pocketed his
pride, sought out the two men who had
. otn trying to ' buy the sea end of the
farm for a sand bank and so'.d them flf.y
Here -for $1,000 an acre and a small, but
p.xAtable, thare in the buslne s. For farm
ing purposes the land was ha d!y worih $r0
m acre. Now the man has paid off ail his
eld indebtedness and Is rapidly accumulat
ing another fortune, although It has been
only four years since he met financial dis
aster. .
This man's rise and that of many olhers
to wealth through sand are Invariably told
to the visitor In such towns as Roslyn and
Port Washington in this fashion:
"See that man over there? Four years
ago he was as poor as Job's turkey. Now
be owns that big place yondof and heaps
benldes. Sand did It.
"Morning, Mr. Hicks. lie's another one
of 'em. Turned his farm Into a land pit
and tells me that he and the men who are
In with him ure making 0 a day clear
money. 'Tisn't so long ago since he was
wondering where his next dol ar would
come from."
And so it goes, until the visitor wonders,
how anyone in the sand hank country
lias escaped making his "rile" out of sind.
But not a few who could have sedulously
refrained from doing so. In the language
of the Swe.-M- h fo ennn of one of tlj- sand
binks, "it's their funny Ideas about ances
tors that keep them poo:'." There' many
an old lirig Island fanr.lly th-.it will not
sell Its ancestral home for love or ino:iey,
no matter how much it needs the latter,
v. ' "'' " '"' ' " ;
tr
t.
'- ' frrnrumfl mrriiiiM irniira mfli i iiui r nmnntTTT r iiinaiB MniiMiiiiMMi niMrii .111 fl
VIEW OF A SAND PIT. SHOWING THE SCREENS, RAILWAY TRACKS AND OTHER METHODS OF MINING.
and that looks askance upon the neighbor
who will permit such desecration for ma
terial gain. It was this attitude on the
port of land owners that six ye'irs ugo
caused the sand Industry to shift from
Manhasset Neck to Hempstead Harbor.
This shift gave r'so to a systematic and
scientific sand Industry. The banks on
Manhasset were worked In a primitive
way. The sand, with no attempt to sepa
rate it from gravel and loam and other
extraneous substances, was worked by
hand, loaded Into carts and dumped on to
barges drawn up at the end of a rickety
pier leading from the pit- Then It was
towed to New York, where It found a
ready market, and later on was screened
by hand, in front of some building under
construction, Just before it became a com
ponent part of the plaster bring mixed In
a mortar bed.
The sand Is still towed to the metropolis
16,000 tons, or 82,000,000 pounds, of It daily
but that is the only part of the old
method that still generally obtains. A lew
spades and carts are no longer' all that Is
necessary to get out the sand; their place
has been taken by a mechanical plant that
represents an investment of all the way
from a few thousand to many thousands
of dollars. This radical change was
caused by on sand bank owner's believing
of cups, filled by hand and steam shovels,
and various m?ana of transporting the
products r.ne and rough sand and gravel
to the barges anchored by the pier. Sjme
times this is dene by carta; again toy lo
comotives and cars puff from -tcreen to
washer and rteam shovels for freight and
then pull oat over the barges and free
themselves of their burden. But one flr.-n
has gone a step further it hauls Its s.nl
by trolley and In this way loads between
ten and twelve barges a day.
This is by far the largest sand bank on
Long Island and 'one of the biggest In
America. The tank itself con Ists cf neirly
COO acres, bought at prices varying from
tt.OOO to $1,500 an acre, and the plant Is ro
large that the great pit, which b glns al
most at the water's edge, extends back a
fourth of a mile and Is nearly a third of a
mi'.e at its widest part, Is not capable of
holding It all, three bulldtngj hiving thMr
foundations in the bottom of Hempstead
harbor. . v
At this plant the sun! 1? not only screened
and washed free of loam and other foreign
substances, but It Is dried. An endless te'.t
carries a steady stream of sand high over
the shore road Into one of the buildings
out over the water and on to a red-hot
metal surface, which evaporates the mois
ture In the very few seconds it takes the
sand to travel over It and fall down a
MEN FEEDING SAND TO THE SCREEN.
that he could get the better portion of
the sand trade by sending his sand to
market till ready for use. And by this
scheme he got It and kept it, until his
rivals were able to put machinery In opera
tion that aluo made it possible for them
to supply clean sand to customers.
A typical sand bank plant 1 ks like
nothing so much as the exieiior works of
an anthracite coal mine, only the struc
tures, Instead of crowning un elevation,
are 011 the floor of the pit, the neml-clrcular
wall of which not Infrequently towers 100
feet above. . The washer in largely respin
slble for this similarity in appearance. It
is built on the same general plan as a coal
breihcr, has the litter's amp'e propor
tions, and is pyramidal und towers like it.
In addition to the washer each pit has
o: e or more screens fed by an endless chain
hopper Into a canal boat. Then w'non the
boat Is filled the hatches ure ba tened d wn
and five hours later the sand Is delivered,
perfectly dry, to the wharf of the New
York consignee.
An innovation at another sand bank Is
a centrifugal machine that blows up tons
of sand In a day Into screens and tha
washer, and that does away with n gr?at
portion of the hand labor that Ij nec-'ssar-11
y required where even steam BhoveU and
steam railroads and trolley systems are
employed. At the a vera go Hempstead Har
bor sand bank forty men And work, and at
least one bank has a pay roll that con
tains over 300 names.
Scarcely any of the employes of the sand
banks are native Long Islanders. From th)
beginning, de-spite offers of good pay, they
have steadfastly refused to work in theru.
The foremen are usually Swedes and th
men under them always Italians. They
find pretty steady employment all the year
around. Bad weather and holidays causa
the only Interruptions. Building strikes
have no terrors for them or their employ
ers, for If the sand is not wanted for con
sumption In the nearest market New York
and tho suburbs it finds ready sale In
Philadelphia, Boston and other eastern
cities.
As a result the amount of sand taken out
of a pit In a year Is staggering. The aver
age dally output of a bank employing forty
men Is 1,000 or 1,600 tens. That means a
ye.uiy output of somn SM),O00 tons or 6JB.009,
001 pounds of sand. And as 1,500 tons yields
a profit of $100, a bank producing that
amount dally clears to Its owners some
thing like $30,000 a year on 460.000 tons.
According to the sand bank owner who
furnished these figures, 16.C00 tons of
Hempstead Harbor sand are marketed In
New York nearly every working day by a
dozen or so sand banks. Roughly estimated,
that gives 4.800,000 tons a year, the net
profit on which reaches close to $400,000,
No wonder that the Long Islander, aa hs
stands on the hill at the head ot Hemp
stead Harbor and beholds the sand banks
on both sides and the piers leading from
them to deep water, exclaims:
"A good sand bank for mine, and tha
dickens take tho gold mines."
THOMAS Q. CLAYTON.
Bonded Not to Marry
"I hereby declare that I will not get mar
ried during the term for which I am hired
to teach this school. Falling to keep this
provision, I hereby agree to forfeit the
sum of $50."
This is the contrnct thut young women
teachers of prepossessing appearance may
be called on to execute to local boards
of education throughout the Interior of
Illinois.
Cupid is responsible for this new turn ot
affairs among the female teachers of that
state. It Is claimed that many of them
are sending in their resignations, most of
them to enable them to get married, that
the directors find It advisable to be guaran
teed against loss, for It Is a matter of soma
expense to the school district to hire a
new teacher, even if they can get one.
At Dixon the other day two teachers re
signed In one day, and at Lake Geneva
and other places there are similar vacan
cies. In hiring a teacher nowadays on
of the desirabilities Is to find out how long
she wants to work.
Her Retort
He was explaining why he didn't get
home until an early morning hour.
"The fact Is," he said, "an old college
chum a stranger In the city came to th
office, and I felt as If I ought to entertain
him a little "
"Oh, it was charity!" she Interrupted.
"Why, yes," he returned, brightening at
the suggestion, "you might call it charity
to spend a little time and money on a lone
some "
"But charity," she Interrupted again, "be
gins at home."
Then he gave up th explanation busk
neas. .