Science: Holland Tunnel

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Over the Hudson River, on the other side of Manhattan, there is no bridge. Ferries, lighters and under-river railroads carry the traffic. A few years ago there was an ice jam in the river and Manhattan lacked coal although there were heaps on the New Jersey side. That situation finally induced the two state legislatures to order the tunnel built. Their tunnel commissions chose Holland's plans and made him chief engineer. His wife last week told how he worked: "Evening after evening he remained at work. Our dinner hour was always uncertain. If we induced him to attend the theatre, he always went back to the tunnel afterward, spending hours in the field offices and personally supervising the work." It exhausted him and he died, 1924, of heart failure. The states made his tunnel a horizontal shaft over his memory.-