Dig This! Moving the Earth One Bit at a Time

DIG THIS! MOVING THE EARTH ONE BIT AT A TIME

Humans have been moving earth around for a long time—since well before the beginning of recorded history. The most basic early digging tool was the multi-purpose “digging stick.” The earliest shovels were probably fashioned from the shoulder blades (“scapula”) of large animals. They could be used for the removal of soil after it had been loosened by the digging stick. These days, shovels are generally used for light digging work, the heavier work being done by power equipment— initially steam shovels and later hydraulic equipment such as excavators, loaders, and bulldozers. Specialized underground work is accomplished by drills and tunnel boring machines.

History’s earth-moving megaprojects include the following: Great Pyramid of Khufu, Great Wall of China, Panama Canal, New York City Subway, Interstate Highway System, Channel Tunnel, Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), State Route 99 Tunnel, Bingham Canyon Mine, Mponeng Gold Mine, Berkut Oil Platform, and the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

David Ritchey

David Ritchey

DIG THIS!

MOVING THE EARTH ONE BIT AT A TIME

David Ritchey Headline Books, Inc. Terra Alta, WV

Dig This! Moving the Earth one bit at a time

by David Ritchey ©2020 David Ritchey All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Headline Books, Inc. To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books, Inc. P. O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.headlinebooks.com Tel: 304-789-3001 Email: mybook@headlinebooks.com ISBN: 9781951556204 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938437

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S T AT E S O F A M E R I C A

To my son, Mac, with whom I shared a delight in “Diggers.”

Acknowledgement To my friend and colleague, Ellen Meyer for her ongoing support and her superb editing assistance.

Contents Preface......................................................................................5 Chapter 1: Digging Animals....................................................7 Chapter 2: Digging by Early Humans......................................9 Chapter 3: Modern Manual Earth-Moving Tools..................11 Chapter 4: Power Earth-Moving Machines for Agriculture....................................................17 Chapter 5: Power Earth-Moving Machines for Industry ������23 Chapter 6: Big Diggers..........................................................31 Chapter 6: Big Digs...............................................................36 Appendix A: Harvesting........................................................64 Index......................................................................................66 Books By David Ritchey.......................................................68 About The Author..................................................................88

Preface It has long been observed that humans have a seemingly instinctive desire, manifesting in childhood, to dig holes in the ground, When my son was a youngster, he loved playing with his toy trucks and earth-moving equipment. He called them “diggers.” I’ve always found that to be a wonderful word and sometime use it myself. As it happens, my initials are DGR, and the coincidental connection between that Boy Playing with Diggers and “DiGgeR is hard to miss. Not surprisingly, I also chose to use “digger2” as my name in my email address.

Digging is the process of using some implement—such as hands, claws, manual tools, or heavy equipment—to remove material from a solid surface, usually soil or sand on Earth’s surface. Digging is actually the combination of two 5

processes: (1) the breaking or cutting of the surface; and (2) the removal and relocation of the material found there. There are a wide variety of reasons humans dig holes, trenches, and other subsurface structures. Among them are: looking for food and water; engaging in agriculture and gardening; irrigation; searching for minerals, metals, and other raw materials such as during mining and quarrying; preparing for construction; creating fortifications; burying the dead; and for excavating in archaeology and searching for fossils and rocks in paleontology and geology.

In addition to digging, moving earth can be done by boring or by drilling. The differences among these methods are subtle; but digging can be thought of as scooping (such as with a shovel) while boring can be thought of as making either a relatively narrow hole with a circular cross-section using a rotary cutting bit that carries the cuttings out of the hole or tunneling—i.e., making a relatively wide hole with a circular cross-section.

The first six chapters of this book discuss the various types of tools used for moving the earth—from those used by animals (claws) to the largest and most advanced used by humans (tunnel boring machines). The last chapter presents some stories of major earth-moving projects—from the Great Pyramid of Khufu in 2530 BC to the Seattle State Route 99 tunnel in 2019. Historically, digging has been primarily associated with preparing the soil for the planting of seeds.

Once those seeds have grown into plants, the plants need to be harvested in the final phase of the agricultural cycle. Appendix A, “Harvesting,” has been included to cover that aspect.

6

Chapter 1

Digging Animals Animals have been digging into the earth for more than 100 million years. Many different animals engage in digging, either as part of burrowing behavior or to search for food or water under the surface of the ground. Today, the animals that dig the deepest are: groundhogs (5 feet), badgers (9 feet), rabbits (10 feet), varanid lizards (12 feet), wombats (12 feet), and Nile crocodiles (40 feet).

The badger is the fastest digging animal on Earth, and the strongest for its size. An American badger in the Midwest was 7

observed digging through the asphalt surface of a parking lot.

It took him less than two minutes to disappear completely!

Badgers’ lives depend on their digging ability. They dig for food, dig their dens, and dig to escape predators. The badger’s massive shoulder and neck muscles enable it to dig faster than a person with a shovel.

Moles, which people often think of as major-problem diggers, generally do not dig deeply; but their tunnels, which are usually near the earth’s surface, can be many hundreds of feet long.

There are a number of mammals, including badgers, weasels, skunks, coyotes, foxes, and dogs, that prey on animals that live underground—most notably moles. Dogs, at least domesticated dogs, don’t really need to dig (except for burying the occasional bone), but it’s their instinct and, for some, a form of play.

Dog Digging

8

Chapter 2

Digging by Early Humans Evolution did not provide humans with claws, and human hands make very poor digging implements. Humans, however, like other animals, needed to dig in the ground for shelter and to find food and water, so they developed tools to make the task feasible. The most basic digging tool was the “digging stick,” which was usually made from very hard boxwood that had been charred to facilitate shaping of the stick, with one end tapered into a somewhat blunted point and the other end rounded to make a handle. Tools of this sort dating back as far as 171,000 years ago have been found, and the process probably began long before that. In hunter-gatherer societies of today, digging sticks are still in use.

They are these people’s ver- Early Human and Digging Stick 9

sion of the Swiss Army knife. They’re useful for loosening soil, digging up roots and tubers, hunting burrowing animals, or pounding and grinding herbs.

The digging stick evolved into a spear, and once the people had a workable spear, they could then hunt large animals. They eventually discovered that the shoulder blades (“scapulae”) of these animals served as reasonably effective shovels for the removal of soil after it had been loosened by the digging stick.

Archaeologists have found shovels of this type that date back to the Neolithic age. As human technology advanced, digging began to be used for agriculture, mining, and in earthworks; and new techniques and technologies were developed to suit these purposes. In modern times, shovels are typically made of metal, with a wooden handle. Because digging is a cutting process, particularly where the soil being dug contains plant roots, digging is aided by the shovel being sharpened.

10

Chapter 3

Modern Manual Earth-Moving Tools The shovel is, not surprisingly, the most ubiquitous manual digging tool. Shovels are designed for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Most shovels consist of a broad blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are usually made of sheet steel or hard plastics and are very strong. Shovel handles are usually made of wood (typically specific varieties such as ash or maple) or fiberglass. These days, shovels are generally used for light digging work, while the heavier work is done by power tools. Almost every US household has a shovel of one sort or another. “One sort or another” suggests that not all shovels are created equal and this is, in fact, the case. There are now many different types of shovels whose design depends on the specific type of task for which they are intended.

Today, the terms “shovel” and “spade” are generally used interchangeably, but, technically, a spade is for digging in unbroken ground, whereas a shovel is for scooping (digging, lifting, and moving) loose bulk materials. This functional difference manifests itself physically in the different designs of the two implements. A shovel’s blade is usually squared off at the end and its medium-length handle with a D-shaped grip joins the blade at an angle so that when it is held by a standing person, 11

the blade is nearly parallel to the ground (thus facilitating scooping). A spade’s blade is usually rounded or pointed at the end and its long handle joins the blade in such a way that the tool is essentially straight from the end of its handle to the end of its blade (thus facilitating judging the angle at which the blade enters the ground and better controlling the shape of the hole). While this differentiation may be Spade Shovel technically accurate, there are many implements called “shovels” that have long handles and/or rounded/pointed blades.

A series of time-motion studies conducted in the 1890s through 1910s demonstrated that digging efficiency was markedly improved by using shovels with different-sized scoops and different shapes, depending on the composition of the material to be moved. This led to the production of new types of shovels such as: • The coal shovel, which has a wide, flat blade with steeply turned sides, a flat face, and a short D-shaped handle.

• The snow shovel, which has a very wide sideless blade that curves upward and is attached to a long handle.

Some are designed mostly for lifting the snow, others for pushing it. The blade is generally plastic to reduce the weight of the tool.

• The grain shovel, which has a wide aluminum or plastic blade that is attached to a short D-shaped handle with a hardwood grip.

12

•

The trenching shovel which has a long thin blade with pronounced upturned side flanges. It is used for digging trenches.

A gardening trowel is a small, single-hand implement for digging, scooping, spreading, or otherwise manipulating dirt. It is useful in planting and potting, for digging holes, and for breaking up clumps of soil. Gardening trowels typically have strong, narrow, Gardening Trowel steel blades with sharp points and wooden handles. They can be considered to be a small type of spade. A person using a trowel usually gets down on the ground and uses the tool for close-in work around other plants in the garden.

A hoe is a long-handled, versatile tool used to shape soil, remove weeds, clear soil, and harvest root crops. Shaping the soil includes piling soil around the base of plants, and digging narrow furrows Hoe

13

and shallow trenches for planting seeds or bulbs. Weeding with a hoe includes agitating the surface of the soil or cutting foliage from roots and clearing soil of old roots and crop residues. Hoes for digging and moving soil are used to harvest root crops such as potatoes. A typical garden hoe has a heavy, broad blade with a straight edge set at approximately a right angle to the shaft. Users chop into the ground and then pull the blade towards themselves. Altering the angle of the handle can cause the hoe to dig more deeply or more shallowly as the hoe is pulled.

A gardening fork is used for loosening, turning over, and aerating soil.

It usually has a medium-length hardwood handle with a D grip and several (usually four) short, sturdy steel tines. It is used similarly to a spade, but in many circumstances, it is more appropriate than a spade: the tines allow the implement to be pushed more easily into the ground; it can rake out stones and weeds and break up clods; it is not so easily stopped by stones; and it does not cut through weed roots or root crops.

Gardening Fork A hand cultivator is used to turn the soil where one intends to plant and for removing weeds near crop plants. In small flower or vegetable gardens, it can be used like a miniature plow to dig the planting rows.

It can also be used to work fertilizer, manure, or compost into the soil. Hand cultivators Hand Cultivator have short wooden handles, usually 10 to 11 inches long, and three to five forged steel tines.

14

A mattock is very similar to a pickaxe, and the terms are often used interchangeably, but they are different tools. A mattock has a broad adze (horizontal blade) on one end of the head, usually with a pick or axe on the other end. A pickaxe has a pointed pick at one end of the head and a narrow chisel at the other. This tool is used for the purpose of Mattock digging and cutting things; it can also be used for loosening hard soil A digging bar is a long, straight, heavy, metal bar (sometimes with a knob at one end and a very narrow, straight blade

Digging Bar

at the other) that is used for various purposes, including as a post hole digger, and to break up or loosen hard or compacted materials such as soil, rock, concrete and ice, or as a lever to move objects.

A posthole digger (sometimes known as a “clam shell digger”) is a two-handled device used to dig narrow holes for the installation of posts. The long handles, which are either wood or fiberglass, are joined together by a heavy pin around which they rotate for opening and closing. The two relatively narrow blades are usually made of steel. The blades Post Hole Digger are thrust into the ground with the handles together (blades open), then the handles are pulled apart (closing the blades), and the chunk of loosened soil is 15

pulled out of the ground. This process is repeated until the hole is deep enough.

A garden knife is a versatile tool, the steel blade of which is razor sharp and serrated on one edge. The handle is usually made of wood. In addition to functioning as a knife, it can also be used as a Garden Knife digging tool, a saw, or a measuring device for planting bulbs (the blade is often marked with a depth scale).

16

Chapter 4

Power Earth-Moving Machines for Agriculture The First Agricultural Revolution, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, was the transformation of human societies from hunting and gathering to farming. This transition occurred worldwide between 10,000 BC and 2000 BC, with the earliest known developments taking place in the Middle East. Farming and the raising of livestock tied people to the land for cultivation and grazing grounds, and this transition gave rise to permanent settlements. Gardening and farming then became the norm. For eons, the earth-moving tasks were performed by humans, but by 6000 BC, humans had started to tame wild oxen, which could be harnessed to till fields using early versions of the plow. The domestication of animals represents one of the most important turning points in human history. The ability to harness the energy of animals to help in the production of food was a revolutionary development that had social, economic, and cultural consequences that can be seen to this day. In many locales, horses began to replace cattle as the primary draft animals beginning about 2000 BC. Even in the 20th century AD, draft horses were used for practical work, including over half a million used during World War I to 17

support the military effort. Beginning in the late 19th century, and with increasing mechanization in the 20th century— especially following World War I in the US and after World War II in Europe—the popularity of the internal combustion engine, and particularly the tractor, reduced the need for the draft horse.

With the invention of steam power came the portable engine, and later, the traction engine, a multipurpose, mobile energy source that was the ground-crawling cousin to the steam locomotive. Agricultural steam engines, the early tractors, took over the heavy pulling work of oxen, and were also equipped with a pulley that could power stationary machines via the use of a long belt. The internal combustion engines—first gasoline engines and later diesel engines—became the main source of power for the next generation of tractors, and they continue in use today. However, technology is changing the way that humans operate the machines, as computer monitoring systems, GPS locators, and self-steering programs allow the most advanced tractors and implements to be more precise and less wasteful in the use of fuel, seed, and fertilizer. In the foreseeable future, there may be mass production of driverless tractors, which use GPS maps and electronic sensors.

Only a few home gardeners, usually those who have larger plots, use power tools, but they are essentially overkill and are seldom seen in the suburbs. Those that are sometimes used include tillers/cultivators and augers.

Tillers and cultivators do much the same kind of work—turning over and aerating surface soil—the difference between them being that tillers are designed to do heavier work in unbroken soil, whereas cultivators do more precise work in already loosened soil.

18

Rotary Tiller

Earth augers are basically power post-hole diggers, and are so seldom used that they are almost always rented rather than purchased. The smaller planting auger, however, has considerable utility. The corkscrew-shaped auger bit attaches to an ordinary drill and is designed to dig precise holes for planting bulbs, seedPlanting Auger lings, and grass plugs.

It is on the farm that power earth-moving devices come into their own right as invaluable tools. Modern farms have enormous amounts of land—far too much to be worked by hand, but power tools make the tasks manageable. Standalone, single-purpose equipment is efficient and economical on the largest farms, but for the smaller farms, tools that can be attached to tractors, which serve as their source of power, are far more practical. Several of these are discussed below.

The plow, a primary tillage implement, has been the quintessential earth-moving device since the early days of agriculture. The fundamental purpose of plowing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops and allowing them to decay. It has been a basic instrument for most of history, and is one of the most significant inventions.

When agriculture was first developed, humans turned soil using simple hand-held digging sticks and hoes. However, the domestication of oxen in Mesopotamia and the Indus valley civilization, perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC, provided mankind with the draft power necessary to develop the larger, animal-drawn plows. To pull plows, the Industrial Revolution brought steam engines, plowing engines, or steam tractors, which were gradually superseded by the internal19

Disk Plow

combustion-powered tractors in use today. A plow’s frame may be made of wood, iron, or steel; with an attached blade or stick; it is used to cut and loosen the soil. As the plow is drawn through the soil, it creates long trenches of fertile soil called furrows. In modern use, a plowed field, which has large soil clods and uneven topography, is typically left to dry out, and is then harrowed before planting. Plowing and cultivating soil homogenizes and modifies the upper 5 to 10 inches to form a plow layer, where the majority of fine plant feeder roots grow.

The harrow is very similar to the plow. Its fundamental purpose, as a secondary tillage implement, is also that of turning over the upper layer of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting, but it cuts less deeply than the plow and its tilth is less coarse. Harrowing is often carried out on fields to fol20

Disk Harrow

low the rough finish left by plowing operations. Harrows differ from cultivators in that they disturb the whole surface of the soil, such as to prepare a seedbed, instead of disturbing only narrow trails that skirt crop rows (to kill weeds).

The cultivator is also a secondary tillage implement and is much like the harrow and the plow. It, too, is used to stir and pulverize the soil. Unlike a harrow, which disturbs the entire surface of the soil, cultivators (specifically row crop Row Crop Cultivator cultivators) are designed to discompose the soil in careful patterns, sparing the established crop plants but disrupting the weeds Agricultural cultivators can vary greatly in size and shape, from 10 feet to 80 feet wide.

The backhoe is a type of excavating equipment consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm, and typically mounted on Backhoe

21

the back of a tractor or front-end loader. With the advent of hydraulic powered attachments such as a tiltrotator, breaker, grapple, or an auger, the backhoe is frequently used in many applications other than excavation The front-end loader is used for digging, moving bulky items, and lifting heavy items. It has a front-mounted, square, wide bucket, with a typical capacity of 20 100 cubic feet, which is connected to the end of two booms (arms). A loader is not the most efficient machine for digging, as it cannot dig very deeply below the level of its Front-end Loader wheels, like a backhoe. The front-end loader’s bucket capacity is generally much larger than the bucket capacity of a backhoe.

The earth auger is a drilling device used for boring holes in the earth for fence posts, decks, tree planting, and more. The rotation of its helical screw blade carries the drilled-out material to the surface.

Common blade sizes range from 4 inches to 12 inches in diameter, with larger sizes available. Bits are usually 36 inches long, and 12- to 18-inch extensions can be added.

Earth Auger

22

Chapter 5

Power Earth-Moving Machines for Industry Industrial earth-moving machines made their appearance about the same time as did those used in agriculture. For hundreds of years, manual shoveling, often in combination with picking, had been the chief means of excavation, not only in agriculture, but also in construction, mining, and quarrying. During the second Industrial Revolution, around the year 1900, the shovel gave way to heavy equipment— initially steam shovels and later, hydraulic equipment such as excavators, loaders, and bulldozers. The various types of equipment used in industrial applications are, in many cases, simply larger versions of those used in agricultural, but some of them can only be described as “gigantic”—for example, the earth-moving bucket on the front cover of this book. There are, as well, a number of industrial machines for which there is no use on the farm. The most important industrial earthmoving machines are discussed below.

Excavators are types of large construction equipment that can be driven by tracks or wheels, but tracks are more standard. All movement and functions of a hydraulic excavator are accomplished through the use of hydraulic fluid with hydrau23

lic cylinders and hydraulic motors. A conventional excavator has a long bucket arm attached to a pivoting cab that can rotate a full 360 degrees. The operator sits in the cab Excavator and, from there, has good visibility of the site. Excavators are highly versatile and can be fitted with special attachments for specialty jobs. The most common uses for an excavator include: • Excavating trenches, holes, and foundations • Material handling • Rough grading • Mining • Dredging Modern hydraulic excavators come in a wide variety of sizes. For example, Caterpillar’s smallest mini-excavator weighs 2,060 pounds and has 13 horsepower; their largest model is the largest excavator available, the CAT 6090, which weighs in excess of 2,160,510 pounds, has 4,500 horsepower, and a bucket as large as 1,800 cubic feet. A wide, large-capacity (mud) bucket with a straight cutting edge is used for cleanup and leveling or when the material to be dug is soft and teeth are not required. A general purpose bucket is usually smaller, stronger, and has hardened side cutters and teeth used to break through hard ground and rocks. Buckets have numerous shapes and sizes for various applications. There are also many other attachments available to be connected to the excavator for boring, ripping, crushing, cutting, lifting, etc.

Loaders are heavy construction equipment used in industrial applications to move aside or load materials. There are many types of loaders, which are a type of tractor, usually wheeled, sometimes on tracks, that has a front-mounted, 24

square, wide bucket connected to the end of two booms (arms), which are used to scoop up loose material from the ground— such as dirt, sand, or gravel—and move it from one place to another without pushing the material across the ground. Large loaders usually have only a front bucket and are called “front loaders,” whereas small loader tractors are often also equipped with a small backhoe and are called “backhoe loaders” or “frontend loaders.” A loader is not the most efficient machine for digging, as it cannot dig much below the level of its wheels the way a Loader backhoe or an excavator can. The capacity of a loader bucket can be anywhere from 36 to 1,430 cubic feet, depending upon the size of the machine and its application.

Bulldozers are among the strongest and most reliable type of heavy equipment used in the construction industry. They are powerful and extremely heavy machines used to move dirt along large open tracts of land. They have a wide, flat, heavy, metal blade on the front of the tractor body that Bulldozer can be operated using two hydraulic pistons to move it at a limited range of angles and depths. The ripper is a long claw-like device on the back of the bulldozer. It breaks the ground surface rock or pavement into small-sized pieces of rubble, which are easy to handle and transport, and that can then be removed so grading can take place. A bulldozer’s considerable weight helps it crush large 25

boulders, among other operations. Bulldozers are often used in road building, construction, mining, forestry, land clearing, infrastructure development, and any other projects requiring highly mobile, powerful, and stable earth-moving equipment.

Trenchers are, not surprisingly, used to dig trenches—usually narrow trenches for piping and cabling. Trenchers come in many different types and sizes, from small walk-behind versions, to very large machines that can cut into asphalt pavement and other hard surfaces.

The trencher has a conveyor system that Chain Trencher carries the excavated material and deposits it onto the ground next to the trench.

Trenchers can use different digging implements depending on the depth of the trench and material being excavated. A wheel trencher does its digging with a toothed metal wheel. It can work in hard or soft soils, either homogeneous (compact rocks, silts, sands) or heterogeneous (split or broken rock, alluvia, moraines). A chain trencher, which resembles a giant chainsaw, cuts with a digging chain or belt that is driven around a rounded metal frame, or boom. This type of trencher can cut ground that is too hard to cut with a bucket-type excavator, and can also cut narrow and deep trenches. The angle of the boom can be adjusted to control the depth of the cut. The chain trencher is used for digging wider trenches (used in telecommunication, electricity, drainage, water, gas, sanitation, etc.), especially in rural areas.

Dump trucks offer limited function but perform the allimportant task of moving and dumping many types of heavy material. They are also road-ready so they can bring material into or out of site and can travel anywhere large equipment is permitted. Dump trucks come in many different sizes and 26

configurations for different capacity and load needs, ranging from small utility-type trucks with dumping beds, to enormous machines used in mining operations. A typical standard dump truck is equipped with an open-box bed, which is hinged at the rear and equipped with hydraulic rams to lift the front, allowing the material in the bed to be deposited (“dumped”) on the ground behind the truck at the site of delivery. Depending on the vehicle length and axle configuration, “superdumps” can be weigh as much Dump Truck as 80,000 pounds and can carry 23 tons of payload or more.

Graders are heavy equipment used for fine grading and for moving small amounts of dirt. They have a long blade that can be adjusted to meet certain angles for creating a flat surface.

They can also be fitted with a second blade in front of the front axle.

For snowplowing and Grader some dirt grading operations, a side blade can also be mounted. Graders are typically used to fine-grade dirt or gravel roads or to prepare the road base course before placing asphalt.

Underground hard-rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, usually those containing metals such as ores and gems (such as diamonds or rubies). Soft-rock mining refers to excavation of softer minerals such as salt, coal, or oil sands.

There are several different methods of hard-rock mining.

27

Typically, two excavations within the ore are required at different elevations below the surface, 50–100 feet apart.

Holes are drilled between the two excavations and loaded with explosives. The holes are blasted and the ore is removed from the bottom excavation. Blasting currently utilizes many different varieties of explosives with different compositions and performance properties. Higher-velocity explosives are used for relatively hard rock in order to shatter and break the rock, while low-velocity explosives are used in soft rocks to generate more gas pressure and a greater heaving effect. The most commonly used explosives in mining today are blends based on ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO), due to their lower cost than dynamite.

Before the advent of tunnel-boring machines (TBMs), drilling and blasting was the only economical way of excavating long tunnels through hard rock, where digging is not possible.

Even today, the method is still used in the construction of tunnels. The decision whether to construct a tunnel using a TBM or a drill-and-blast method includes a number of factors.

Tunnel length is a key issue that needs to be addressed because large TBMs for a rock tunnel have a high capital cost, but because they are usually faster than a drill-and-blast method, their price per meter of tunnel is lower. This means that shorter tunnels tend to be less economical to construct with a TBM and are therefore usually constructed by drill and blast.

A tunnel-boring machine (TBM) is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata.

They can bore through anything from hard rock to sand. Tunnel Tunnel Boring Machine diameters can range 28

from 3 feet to 60 feet. Tunnel-boring machines are used as an alternative to drilling and blasting methods in rock and conventional “hand mining” in soil. TBMs have the advantages of limiting the disturbance to the surrounding ground and producing a smooth tunnel wall. A TBM named “Big Becky,” with a bore diameter of 47 feet 3 inches, was used to bore a hydroelectric tunnel beneath Niagara Falls. An earth pressure balance TBM known as “Bertha,” with a bore diameter of 57 feet 3 inches, was used in Seattle, Washington, for its Highway 99 tunnel project. Bertha completed boring the tunnel on April 4, 2017. In hard rock, either shielded or open-type TBMs can be used. Hard-rock TBMs excavate rock with disc cutters mounted in the cutter head. The disc cutters create compressive stress fractures in the rock, causing it to chip away from the tunnel face. The excavated rock (muck) is transferred through openings in the cutter head to a belt conveyor, where it runs through the machine to a system of conveyors or muck cars for removal from the tunnel. Urban tunneling has the special requirement that the ground surface be undisturbed. This means that ground subsidence must be avoided. Also, when tunneling in urban environments, other tunnels, existing utility lines, and deep foundations need to be addressed in the early planning stages.

A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, in the earth’s subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas extraction wells; those small enough to be moved manually by one person are called augers.

The term “rig” generally refers to the complex equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earth’s crust. They can be loDrilling Rig

29

cated on land or offshore. Small- to medium-sized drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks, or trailers. Larger rigs, more permanently emplaced, are capable of drilling through thousands of yards of the Earth’s crust, using large “mud pumps” to circulate drilling mud (slurry) through the drill bit and up the casing annulus, for cooling and removing the “cuttings” while a well is being drilled. Other equipment can force acid or sand into reservoirs to facilitate extraction of the oil or natural gas. Moreover, in remote locations, there can be permanent living accommodations and catering for crews. Primarily in onshore oil and gas fields, once a well has been drilled, the drilling rig will be moved off of the well and a smaller service rig that is purpose-built for completions will be moved on to the well to get the well on line.

30

Chapter 6

Big Diggers As mentioned in the previous chapter, with the development of technology that allowed for the construction of earth-moving equipment to be used in industrial venues, the machines just got bigger and bigger. It appears that we humans are fascinated by superlatives, so it seems to be of value to discuss here the biggest devices of each type discussed in Chapter 5 that exist as of this writing.

The Bucyrus RH400, owned by Caterpillar, is the world’s biggest hydraulic excavator. It is a front-shovel excavator weighing approximately 889 tons. The undercarriage width is 28 feet and the crawler length is 36 feet. The shovel on the excavator has the capacity to hold 1,590 cubic feet of rock in a single scoop. The RH400 is powered by two 16-cylinder Cat 3516B or Cummins QSK60 diesel engines

World’s Biggest Excavator 31

with a maximum power output of 4,400 horsepower at 1,800 revolutions per minute.

The LeTourneau L-2350 holds the Guinness World Record as the largest loader in the world. It uses a diesel-electric propulsion system similar to that used in a locomotive. Each rubber-tired wheel is driven by its own independent electric motor. The L-2350 loader is used for surface mining, and is designed to center-load haul trucks. With a World’s Biggest Loader large- bucket capacity of 1,430 cubic feet, the L-2350 provides an operating payload of 160,000 pounds (80 tons), a 24-foot lift height, and an 11.5foot reach.

The Komatsu D575A is currently the largest bulldozer in production. It has 1,150 horsepower and, when equipped with a standard blade that measures 11 feet 11 inches high

World’s Biggest Bulldozer

and 24 feet 3 inches wide, is able to move 90 cubic yards of material per pass (or 125 cubic yards with an optional extralarge blade). The D575A measures 16 feet tall, 38 feet 5 inches long, and has a ground clearance of 2 feet 5 inches. Surface 32

mine operators in the United States, Canada, and Australia are the primary users of the D575A, although it is sometimes used in heavy construction applications. Due to its immense size, the D575A must be broken down into component form when it is moved from one job site to another. Moving all the components requires six to eight truckloads.

The Astec Underground 1860 HD Chain Trencher, the biggest of the big, works not unlike a forestry chainsaw on a grand scale. Weighing in at 350,000 pounds, it has two Caterpillar diesel engines totaling 1,500 horsepower, and its chain is 35 feet long. The larger engine, rated at 1,200 horsepower, is mechanically linked to the chain drive. The smaller 300-horsepower engine is used to power the hydraulics, and the crawler tracks up to a top speed of 1 mile per hour. This unit is specifically designed to dig trenches for utility and liquidsupply lines. It will dig straight through World’s Biggest Chain Trencher bedrock up to 30 feet deep. The cutting chain has hundreds of carbide teeth configured in a chevron pattern so the machine can chip away at rock and create consistently sized rocks for easy removal.

The BelAz 75710 super dump truck is an ultra-class haul truck manufactured in Belarus by BelAZ. It is the world’s largest, highest-payloadcapacity, haul truck.

The 75710 can carry a 500-ton load. With an empty weight of 500 tons it is very heavily built. It has a conventional two-axle setup, World’s Biggest Dump Truck

33

but the wheels are doubled—four to an axle—so it needs eight tires. It also has four-wheel drive and four-wheel hydraulic steering, which is unusual. It is 67 feet 7 inches long, 26 feet 9 1 ⁄4 inches high, and 32 feet 4 5⁄8 inches wide.

Instead of a single engine the, Siemens MMT 500 drive system is powered by two 4,000-cubic-inch, 16-cylinder, fourstroke diesel engines, each with 2,300 horsepower. Maximum speed is 40 miles per hour, and economy maximum speed (when fully loaded and on a 10% gradient) is 25 miles per hour.

The ACCO grader, built by the Italian Umberto Acco Company in 1980, to this day, holds the record as the world’s largest motor grader. It measured more than 24 feet in length; weighed more than 200 tons; had a 33-foot blade; and had a total of 12 tires—two per hub. The ACCO had two engines; the 700-horsepower front end articulated from the 1,000-horsepower rear end. The machine was built for a client in Libya, but was never delivered because of trade restrictions.

World’s Biggest Grader Sadly, the world’s largest motor grader was left in Italy as nothing more than a curiosity for tourists, and it has now been dismantled for scrap.

Bertha, the world’s largest tunnel-boring machine to date, was built specifically for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel project in Seattle. It was made 34

World’s Biggest Tunnel Boring Machine

by Hitachi Zosen Sakai Works in Osaka, Japan, and the machine’s assembly was completed in Seattle in June 2013. Bertha is 322 feet long, weighs 7,463 tons, and has a boring diameter of 57.5 feet. Tunnel boring began on July 30, 2013, was halted a number of times because of problems, and was finally completed on April 4, 2017.

The Hibernia Drilling Platform, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, is the world’s largest (in terms of weight, including the GBS) offshore oil platform. This gravity base structure (GBS), which sits on the ocean floor, is 364 feet high and has storage capacity sufficient for 1.3 million barrels of crude oil in its 279-foot-high caisson. The platform acts as a small concrete island with serrated outer edges designed to withstand the impact of an iceberg. The GBS contains production storage tanks and the remainder of the void space is filled with ballast, with the entire structure weighing in at 1.2 million World’s Biggest Drilling Platform tons.

35

Chapter 7

Big Digs Just as people appear to be particularly interested in superlatives when it comes to earth-moving equipment, so too do they appear to be especially interested in superlatives when it comes to those earth-moving projects on which that equipment is used. The bigger the project, the more interesting it is … as long as it’s not out in the middle of nowhere (out of sight, out of mind, and all that). Technological progress in the last 75 years or so has made these “megaprojects” feasible to the extent that they are almost becoming commonplace these days. While we are aware of a few megaprojects from long ago, the number of people and the amount of time required to complete them is almost incalculable. Two such undertakings were the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Wall of China.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is located in the Giza Necropolis, which is presumably the most important pyramid field in all of Egypt. It includes the three pyramid complexes known as the Great Pyramids—the Pyramid of Khufu (built about 2550 BC); the Pyramid of Khafre, Khufu’s son (built about 2530 BC); and the Pyramid of Menkaure, Khufu’s grandson (built about 2510 BC). The Giza necropolis also contains the massive sculpture known as the Great Sphinx (built about 2530 BC), numerous lesser temples and pyramids, several 36

cemeteries, a workers’ village, and an industrial complex. It was located about five miles inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 15 miles southwest of Cairo’s city center. The sides of all three of the Giza Pyramids were astronomically oriented to true north-south and true east-west within a small fraction of a degree.

The Khufu Pyramid complex consisted of a valley temple (now buried beneath the village of Nazlet-el-Samman), which was connected to a causeway that led to the mortuary temple that was, in turn, connected to the king’s pyramid. The king’s pyramid had associated with it three smaller queens’ pyramids, as well as five boat pits. The boat pits on the south side of the pyramid still contain intact ships, one of which has been restored and is currently on display. Khufu’s Pyramid was built mainly of limestone (with large red granite blocks used in some interior chambers). Approximately 2.3 million blocks of stone were cut, transported, and assembled to create the 5.75-million-ton structure.

The Great Pyramid is perhaps the most colossal single building ever erected on the planet. Its sides rise at an angle of 51°52′ and are accurately oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass. It was built on a square base measuring about 755 feet per side and covered 13.1 acres (570,636 square feet).

The dimensions of the pyramid are extremely accurate, and the site was leveled within a fraction of an inch over the entire base.

This is comparable to the accuracy possible with modern construcGreat Pyramid of Khufu tion methods and laser leveling. The pyramid’s original height was 488 feet, but today it is only 455 feet high, because the top 33 feet of finequality white Tura limestone was taken away for construction 37

of buildings in Cairo. It is still, however, the tallest pyramid in the world, and was the tallest structure of any sort for over 3,800 years, until it was surpassed by the 520-foot spire of England’s Lincoln Cathedral in about 1300 AD. The Pyramid’s core is made of yellowish limestone blocks, the outer casing (now almost completely gone) and the inner passages are of finer light-colored limestone, and the interior burial chamber is built of huge blocks of granite. Copper chisels were used for quarrying sandstone and limestone, but harder stones such as granite and diorite would have required stronger materials. Dolerite, a hard, black, igneous rock, was used in the quarries of Aswan to remove granite. It is believed that during excavation, massive dolerite “pounders” were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. At the bottom of the excavation, wooden pegs were rammed into slots that had been cut and then filled with water. This caused the pegs to expand, splitting the stone, and the block was then slid down onto a waiting boat. Teams of oxen or manpower were used to drag the stones on a prepared slipway that was lubricated with oil. Once the stones were at the construction site, ramps were built to get them to the proper height, after which they were levered into place on the pyramid.

The process of building the pyramid, while complicated, was not as colossal an undertaking as commonly believed.

While there have been many different estimates of the number of workers and the amount of time required, a synthesis of all the data suggests that 20,000–30,000 laborers (and a few thousand more support personnel—bakers, physicians, priests, etc.) were needed to build the Great Pyramid at Giza, and that the project took about 20 years to complete.

The Great Wall of China has a total length (including all corridors, branches, sections, etc.) of 13,171 miles; it is the longest man-made structure on Earth. Today, the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history. The construction took place over 38

many centuries, by many dynasties, in many different sections.

It was built along an east-to-west line across the northern borders of China to protect against raids and invasions. Some of its defensive features include watch towers, barracks, signaling capabilities, and a transportation corridor.

Several walls were being built from as early as the 7th century BC by ancient Chinese states; selective stretches were later joined together in the period of 220–206 BC by Qin Shi Huang , the first Emperor of China. Most of the ancient Qin walls have eroded away over the centuries, and very few sections remain today; there are no surviving historical records indicating their exact length and course. The human cost of the construction is unknown, but it has been estimated by some authors that hundreds of thousands, if not up to a million, workers died building the Qin wall.

Later on, many successive dynasties have built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The best-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty in the period from 1368 to 1644 AD. Unlike the earlier fortifications, the Ming construction was stronger and more elaborate due to the use of bricks and stone instead of rammed earth. Up to 25,000 watchtowers are estimated to have been constructed on the wall. As Mongol raids continued periodically over the years, the Ming devoted considerable resources to repairing and reinforcing the walls. Sections near the Ming capital of Beijing were especially strong. Today, they are frequently renovated and are regularly visited by tourists. Badaling, approximately 50 miles northwest of urban Beijing city, is the site of the most visited section of the Great Wall. The portion of the wall running through the site was built in 1504, along with a military The Great Wall of China

39

outpost reflecting the location’s strategic importance. Made of stone and bricks from the hills, this portion of the Great Wall is 25 feet 7 inches high and 16 feet 5 inches wide. Battlements lined the uppermost portion of the vast majority of the wall; from the parapets, guards could survey the surrounding land; and signal towers were built upon hilltops or other high points along the wall for their visibility.

Apart from defense, other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade, and the control of immigration and emigration. Though it is still a great marvel today, many sections have been destroyed due to local construction, vandalism, and erosion.

Many hundreds of years later, but still before the advent of truly modern high-level technology, two other highly visible megaprojects were undertaken. These were: The Panama Canal, one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever, is a 50-mile long artificial waterway built across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean via the Caribbean Sea. Interestingly, while globally the Atlantic Ocean is east of the isthmus and the Pacific is west, the general direction of the canal passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is from northwest to southeast, because of the shape of the isthmus at the point where the canal is located.

A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!

(Well-known palindrome) The idea of cutting a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific through Panama was first proposed in 1524, with plans drawn up by 1529. Various nations considered the idea, but for reasons of war, international politics, or the huge expense, the project was postponed for nearly four centuries. The Panama 40

Canal is a key conduit for international maritime trade, greatly reducing the amount of time ships needed to travel from one ocean to the other and helping them avoid the dangerous route around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America. The average time for transiting the canal is 11.38 hours, whereas the Cape Horn route takes two weeks.

A French company began work on construction of the canal in 1881, but stopped in 1889 due to engineering problems and the high mortality rate—22,000 lives were lost, mainly due to yellow fever and malaria as a consequence of the thick jungle environment through which the canal was being built. The United States took over construction in 1904, and a sanitation officer was appointed. Many measures were taken, such as city water systems, fumigation of buildings, spraying of insect-infested areas, installation of mosquito netting, and elimination of stagnant water, to cut down on the spread of deadly diseases. Though the mosquito-borne illnesses were nearly eliminated in a few years, still another 5,600 workers died. Work was completed in 1914, and traffic through the canal included about 1,000 ships per year. In recent years, traffic has increased to about 14,000 ships annually. To date, approximately one million ships have transited the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal consists of artificial lakes, several improved and artificial channels, and three sets of locks. An additional artificial lake, Alajuela Lake, acts as a reservoir for the canal. Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal, is 85 feet above sea level, and canal locks at each end raise ships up to that level and then lower them at the other end.

Panama Canal 41

Gatun Lake, and the associated Gatun Dam were the largest lake and the largest dam, respectively, in the world at that time. By July 1, 1914, a total of 238,845,587 cubic yards had been excavated during the American construction era.

Together with some 30,000,000 cubic yards excavated by the French, this gives a total of around 268,000,000 cubic yards.

The Panama Canal cost the US around $375 million, including the $10 million paid to Panama and the $40 million paid to the French company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history up to that time.

Fortifications cost extra, about $12 million. Amazingly, unlike any other such project on record, the American canal had cost less in dollars than estimated, with the final figure some $23 million below the 1907 estimate, in spite of landslides and a design change to a wider canal. Even more amazing is that this huge, complex, and unprecedented project was carried out without any of the scandal or corruption that often plagues such efforts, nor has any hint of scandal ever come to light in subsequent years. There was, of course, also a cost in lives.

According to hospital records, 5,609 lives were lost from disease and accidents during the American construction era.

Adding the estimated number of deaths during the French era would likely bring the total deaths to some 25,000.

The size of the locks determines the maximum size ship that can transit the Panama Canal. The original locks are 1,050 feet long and 110.0 feet wide. Because of the importance of the canal to international trade, many ships were built to the maximum size allowed. These are known as Panamax vessels.

The Panama Canal expansion project, which was completed in 2016, added a third set of locks, which were larger and allowed dimensions of ships using these locks to increase by 25 percent in length, 51 percent in beam, and 26 percent in draft, as defined by New Panamax metrics. The New Panamax ships are, overall, about one and a half times the previous Panamax size and can carry over twice as much cargo.

42

In the 1903 Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, Panama had granted the United States the right to build and operate the canal, including a five-mile strip of land on either side of the cut, in exchange for an annual lease payment.

From World War II to the 1970’s, the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone lost their military significance, but they were still an important economic consideration. Since the US was no longer concerned about the military value of the Panama Canal, Richard Nixon started negotiations to revert the Canal Zone back to Panama. Jimmy Carter continued the negotiations, and in 1977, made the Carter-Torrijos Treaty to return the Canal Zone back to its owners. The US got what it wanted in the lease—the exclusive right to defend the canal as it saw fit, the assurance of the international neutrality of the canal to all countries, and the right of first refusal to build a new canal or expand the current canal.

On December 31, 1999, final control of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone reverted back to Panama, and the Panama Canal Authority assumed command of the waterway. Panama has, in the last 20+ years, demonstrated the ability to maintain and operate the canal. It also successfully built the second series of locks to permit larger and heavier ships through the canal. The Panama Canal remains one of the chief revenue sources for the country of Panama.

The New York City subway system is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It opened its first underground route on October 27, 1904.

Construction has continued ever New York City Subway Station since, with new lines, 43

repairs, and replacement lines under constant construction.

Today, it is one of the world’s oldest public transit systems, one of the most-used, and the one with the most stations (472).

It is also one of the world’s longest, with 245 miles of routes, approximately 60% of which are underground. The system offers service 24 hours per day, every day of the year—although some routes may operate only part-time.

In the early years of construction, the typical tunnel construction method was cut-and-cover. The street was torn up to dig the tunnel below before being rebuilt from above.

Traffic on the street would be interrupted, and temporary steel and wooden bridges were used to carry surface traffic above the construction. More recent projects use tunnelboring machines, which, while increasing the cost, minimize disruption at street level and avoid already existing utilities.

In 1904, it was reported that the first 22 miles of tunnels required the removal of 3.6 million cubic yards of stone and dirt. Over the years, no proper records of excavation volumes were kept, and it is impossible to come up with an accurate overall number in retrospect. However, a very rough estimate can be made as follows: Today there are 245 miles of routes, of which 60% (147 miles) are underground. Assuming the same volume of material per mile was removed as in 1914 (probably a low-side assumption, given that adjunct facilities are not included), that would mean that the number is approximately 24 million cubic yards. To put that number in perspective, if all that earth were to be stacked in a pile with a base area of one acre, the pile would be about 15,000 feet high.

By annual ridership, the New York City subway is the busiest rapid transit system in both the Western Hemisphere and the Western world, as well as the ninth-busiest rapid transit rail system in the world. In 2017, the subway delivered over 1.72 billion rides, averaging approximately 5.6 million daily rides on weekdays and a combined 5.7 million rides each weekend (3.2 million on Saturdays, 2.5 million on Sundays).

On September 23, 2014, more than 6.1 million people rode the 44

subway system, establishing the highest single-day ridership since ridership was regularly monitored in 1985. During the late 1940s, the system recorded high ridership, and on December 23, 1946, the system-wide record of 8,872,249 fares was set.

As of 2018, the New York City subway’s budgetary burden for expenditures was $8.7 billion, supported by collection of fares, bridge tolls, and earmarked regional taxes and fees, as well as direct funding from state and local governments. Its on-time performance rate was 65% during weekdays.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the New York City subway ridership was at an all-time low, having dropped to 1910s levels. Litter, graffiti, and crime were rampant, maintenance was poor, and delays and track problems were common. By the early 1990s, conditions had improved significantly, although maintenance backlogs accumulated during those 20 years are still being fixed today.

Entering the 21st century, progress continued despite several disasters. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks resulted in service disruptions on lines running through Lower Manhattan, particularly the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, which ran directly underneath the World Trade Center.

Sections of the tunnel, as well as the Cortlandt Street station, which was directly underneath the Twin Towers, were severely damaged. Rebuilding required the suspension of service on that line south of Chambers Street. Ten other nearby stations were closed for cleanup. By September 15, 2002, all except Cortland Street were reopened, along with service south of Chambers Street. Cortlandt Street Station finally reopened on September 8, 2018.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded several underwater tunnels and other facilities near New York Harbor, as well as trackage over Jamaica Bay. The immediate damage was fixed within six months, but long-term resiliency and rehabilitation projects continue. Among the more notable Sandy recovery projects are the restoration of the new South Ferry station from 2012 to 2017; the full closure of the 45

Montague Street Tunnel from 2013 to 2014; and the partial 14th Street Tunnel shutdown from 2019 to 2020.

As of November 2016, the New York City Subway has 6,418 cars on its roster. A typical New York City subway train consists of eight to 11 cars (although shuttles can have as few as two), and the train can range from 150 to 600 feet in length.

The Interstate Highway System is a network of controlledaccess highways, with a total length of 48,191 miles, that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States.

Begun in 1956, the project was originally estimated at $25 billion over 12 years, but it ended up costing $114 billion over 35 years. (When adjusted for inflation, that’s $521 billion in 2018 dollars.) Presumably, Interstate Highway System Interchange that qualifies as a significant cost overrun. The venture is considered the most expensive construction project ever undertaken by all of humankind. (By way of comparison, the cost of constructing the International Space Station was “only” $150 billion.)

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a strong advocate of the system and, after he became President in 1953, his administration developed a proposal for an interstate highway system, eventually resulting in the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. While he was serving as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower had gained an appreciation of the Reichsautobahn system, the first “national” implementation of modern Germany’s Autobahn network, as a necessary component of a national defense system. Interstate highways improve the mobility of military troops to and from airports, seaports, rail terminals, and other military bases. They also connect to other roads that are a part of the Strategic Highway Network, a system of roads identified as critical to the US Department of Defense.

46

The system has also been used to facilitate evacuations in the face of hurricanes and other natural disasters. An option for maximizing traffic throughput on a highway is to reverse the flow of traffic on one side of a divider so that all lanes become outbound lanes. This procedure, known as “contraflow lane reversal,” has been employed several times for hurricane evacuations.

Construction of the Interstate Highway System was proclaimed complete in 1992, though some planned routes were canceled and several routes have stretches that do not fully conform to federal standards. Two of the original Interstates—I-95 and I-70—were not continuous; both of these discontinuities were due to local opposition, which blocked efforts to build the necessary connections to fully complete the system. I-95 was made a continuous freeway in 2018, and thus I-70 remains the only original interstate with a discontinuity.

Though 90 percent of their construction was funded by the federal government, interstate highways are owned by the state in which they were built. About 70 percent of the construction and maintenance costs of interstate highways in the United States have been paid through user fees, primarily the fuel taxes collected by the federal, state, and local governments. To a much lesser extent, they have been paid for by tolls collected on toll highways and bridges. The federal gasoline tax was first imposed in 1932 at 1 cent per gallon; during the Eisenhower administration, the Highway Trust Fund, established by the Highway Revenue Act in 1956, imposed a 3-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, soon increased to 4.5 cents per gallon. Since 1993, the tax has remained at 18.4 cents per gallon.

With only a few exceptions, all interstates must meet federal standards, such as having: at least four lanes; controlled access; no at-grade crossings; a minimal number of traffic lights, except at toll booths and ramp meters; and signage that conforms to federal traffic sign specifications. Speed limits vary with locale. Typically, lower limits are established in Northeastern and coastal states, while higher speed limits are established in inland states west of the Mississippi River.

47

While numerous exceptions do exist, there is a general scheme for numbering interstates. Primary interstates are assigned one- or two-digit numbers, while shorter routes (such as spurs, loops, and short connecting roads) are assigned threedigit numbers where the last two digits match the parent route.

(Thus, I-294 is a loop that connects at both ends to I-94, while I-787 is a short spur route attached to I-87.) Loop routes are given even first digits, and spur routes are given odd. In urban areas, loops and spurs that travel through the corporate limits of the city and serve the central business district are known as “business loops” and “business spurs.” The shields for these routes have a green background, rather than red and blue, the word Business appears instead of Interstate, and the word Spur or Loop usually appears above the number.

Interstate Highways are signed by a number placed on a red, white, and blue shield. These signs usually measure 36 inches high and 36 inches wide for two-digit interstates or 45 inches for three-digit interstates. In the numbering scheme for the primary routes, east–west highways are assigned even numbers and north–south highways are assigned odd numbers. Odd route numbers increase from west to east, and even-numbered routes increase from south to north. This numbering system usually holds true, even if the local direction of the route does not match the compass directions. Numbers divisible by five are intended to be major arteries among the primary routes, carrying traffic long distances. Primary north– south interstates increase in number from I-5 between Canada and Mexico along the West Coast to I95 between Canada and Miami, Florida, along the East Coast. Major west–east arterial interstates increase in number from I-10 between Santa Monica, California, and Jacksonville, Florida, to I-90 between Seattle, Washington, and Boston, Massachusetts.

Sometimes, in situations known as “concurrencies,” two or more different interstates, usually for a short distance, can share the same roadway. Amusingly, in rare instances, two may be signed as traveling in opposite directions. For example, 48

near Wytheville, Virginia, there is a concurrency between I-77 (which runs primarily north–south, as it is signed) and Interstate 81 (which runs primarily northeast–southwest, but is also signed north–south). Because of the way they intersect, the section of interstate where they overlap has the two roads signed for opposite directions. One might simultaneously be on I-77 northbound and I-81 southbound, while actually traveling due west.

“Wrong-Way” Concurrencies

Because of multiple exceptions and inconsistencies, the numbering of interstate mile makers and exits can at times be confusing. The basic idea for mile markers is this: On most interstates, mile marker numbers begin at the south state line on north-south routes and increase as you travel north. On eastwest routes, the numbers begin on the western state border and increase as you travel east. Three-digit interstates with an even first number—loop routes—have mile markers that are numbered in a clockwise direction, beginning just west of an interstate that bisects the circumferential route near a south polar location. In most states, exit numbers correspond to interstate mileage markers and, if a single mile has multiple exits, they may be assigned letter suffixes. In several northeastern states, however, sequential exit-numbering schemes are still used regardless of how many miles have passed between exits.

49

Following the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, use of the railroad system for passengers and freight declined sharply, but the trucking industry expanded dramatically and the cost of shipping and travel fell sharply.

Suburbanization became possible, annual seasonal relocations burgeoned, and tourism increased dramatically as well. In rural areas, towns and small cities off the grid lost out as shoppers followed the interstate and new factories were located near them. About one-quarter of all vehicle miles now driven in the country use the 48,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System. Several future routes are in development.

By the 1980s, modern technology for digging had come into its own, and megaprojects were being undertaken with greater and greater frequency. They were of various types, but it was the tunneling projects that attracted the most attention from the public. Drilling projects and mining projects usually took place in remote areas, so it was a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” but tunneling projects often were undertaken in populated areas, where their progress could be observed on a regular basis. In developed areas, tunneling was the only practical way to proceed because it could be done with minimal damage to the existing infrastructure and without too much disruption to the routines of the populace. The major tunneling projects over the next 30 years included the Channel Tunnel linking the island of Great Britain with the European mainland, the Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston, and the Star Route 99 Tunnel in Seattle.

The Channel Tunnel is a 31.35-mile railway tunnel that connects Folkestone, Kent, in England, with Coquelles, Pasde-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English 50

Train Exiting Channel Tunnel

Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is 250 feet deep below the seabed and 380 feet below sea level. At 23.5 miles, the tunnel has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world. The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is 99 miles per hour.

This eventually successful project, organized by Eurotunnel, began construction in 1988 and opened in 1994.

At $12.8 billion (1985 dollars), it was, at the time, the most expensive construction project ever proposed. The cost finally amounted to $21 billion ($50 billion in 2019 dollars), well over its predicted budget.

Working from both the English side and the French side of the Channel, 11 tunnel-boring machines cut through chalk marl to construct two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. The two 25-foot-diameter rail tunnels are located 98 feet apart, and the 16-foot-diameter service tunnel is located in between.

The three bores are connected by cross-passages and piston relief ducts. At the peak of construction, 15,000 people were employed. Ten workers, eight of them British, were killed during construction between 1987 and 1993, most in the first few months of boring.

The tunnel was officially opened one year later than originally planned by Queen Elizabeth II and the French President François Mitterrand, in a ceremony held in Calais on May 6, 1994. Full public service did not start for several months, but the first freight train ran on June 1, 1994.

In the early years of operation, passenger traffic was less than had been estimated. It peaked at 18.4 million in 1998, but then dropped back down during the period from 1999 through 2010. It went back up in the period from 2011 to 2018, and ridership in 2018 was 21.6 million. Freight traffic (both through trains and freight shuttles) was also less in the early years than had been predicted. It peaked in 2007 at 21.6 million tons, but then dropped back down during the period from 2008 to 2011.

It went back up in the period from 2012 to 2018, with more than 24.8 million tons being moved.

51

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), commonly known as the “Big Dig,” was a 3.5-mile tunnel megaproject in Boston that rerouted the central artery of Interstate 93, the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel. The project also included the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel (extending I-90 to Logan International Airport), the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge over the Charles River, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the space vacated by the previous I-93 elevated roadway.

Construction began in 1991, and the project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an Boston’s Big Dig estimated cost of $2.8 billion (1982 dollars, $7.42 billion in 2019 dollars). However, it was not completed until December 2007, and in 2012, it was announced that the total cost had been $24.3 billion (in 2012 dollars). The completed tunnel saw the excavation of 16 million cubic yards of earth. The Big Dig was the most expensive single-site highway project in the US. It was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests, and the death of one motorist.

As early as 2001, Turnpike Authority officials and contractors knew of thousands of leaks in ceiling and wall fissures, extensive water damage to steel supports and fireproofing systems, and overloaded drainage systems. Many of the leaks were a result of subcontractors failing to remove gravel and other debris before pouring concrete. On September 15, 2004, a major leak in the Interstate 93 north tunnel forced the closure of the tunnel while repairs were conducted. This also forced the Turnpike Authority to release information 52

regarding its non-disclosure of prior leaks. A follow-up report admitted that “extensive” leaks—more than 400—still existed and were more severe than state authorities had previously acknowledged. On July 10, 2006, concrete ceiling panels and debris weighing 26 tons and measuring 20 by 40 feet fell on a car traveling on the two-lane ramp connecting northbound I-93 to eastbound I-90 in South Boston, killing its passenger, and injuring the driver.

The Big Dig untangled the co-mingled traffic from the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Sumner and Callahan tunnels. The result was a 62% reduction in vehicle hours of travel through the areas that had been rebuilt—Interstate 93, the airport tunnels, and the connection from Storrow Drive.

However, a 2008 Boston Globe report asserted that waiting time for the majority of trips actually increased as a result of demand induced by the increased road capacity. Because more drivers were opting to use the new roads, traffic bottlenecks were only pushed outward from the city, not reduced or eliminated.

The State Route 99 Tunnel is a deep-bore highway tunnel in the city of Seattle, Washington. The 2-mile double-decker tunnel carries a section of State Route 99 (SR 99) under Downtown Seattle. The tunnel, which replaced an existing viaduct, is a single tube that measures 9,270 feet long and 52 feet wide. The double-decker highway that it carries is 32

Seattle’s State Route 99 53

feet wide and has two lanes in each direction. Each deck has two 11-foot lanes, an 8-foot west shoulder, and a 2-foot east shoulder. The decks are designed with banks of 2 degrees in turns and 4-degree grades to facilitate designed speeds of 50 miles per hour. Below the highway decks are utility lines and mechanical spaces for the tunnel’s ventilation, lighting, and fire-suppression systems.

Boring of the tunnel with the 57.5-foot diameter “Bertha,” at the time the world’s largest-diameter TBM, began on July 30, 2013, and at the time, was expected to be completed in 14 months. After several delays, on April 4, 2017, the TBM broke through to the recovery pit on the north end of the tunnel, completing the excavation process. The boring machine was dismantled and removed from the site over the next four months. Approximately 86,000 cubic yards of earth was excavated while constructing the tunnel, and the overall cost of the megaproject was about $3 billion.

The viaduct closed permanently on January 11, 2019, and the tunnel opened to traffic around midnight February 3/4, 2019. The first full day of tunnel operations saw low traffic volumes, with only 22,145 vehicle trips, due to an ongoing snowstorm, as well as confusion at the left-side exits. Within months of opening, tunnel usage had increased to over 70,000 trips per weekday and a weekly volume just under 500,000 trips by late March 2019.

Tunnel boring is a “hot” item in the megaproject realm these days, and it is likely to get hotter with the entry of Elon Musk (of Tesla and SpaceX renown) into the field. Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC) was founded in December 2016.

By February 2017, the company had begun digging a testing trench that was 30 feet wide, 50 feet long, and 15 feet deep on the premises of SpaceX’s offices in Hawthorne, California. This was Musk’s Tunnel Boring Machine 54

the initial stage of a 2-mile high-speed tunnel to Westwood, California. In June 2018, Musk said that tunnel boring was complete, that the final work was nearly done, and that the tunnel would be open in a few months.

Musk claimed that the next route to be created will run from LAX to Culver City, then to Santa Monica, and end in Westwood. He said the tunnel trip will take five minutes, in contrast to normal driving, which can take up to 45 minutes in regular traffic. These trips will be implemented by placing a car on an electric sled and traveling at 120 miles per hour through the tunnels. In July 2017, Musk announced plans to build an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Other proposed projects include a San Francisco to Los Angeles Hyperloop and a Texas Hyperloop, which are planned for a later stage.

In June 2018, Chicago selected Musk’s company to provide high-speed transportation between downtown and the airport.

The final contract remains to be negotiated. The system would transport passengers in automated electric cars carrying 16 passengers (and their luggage) through two parallel tunnels running under existing public way alignments, traveling from Block 37 to the airport in 12 minutes, at speeds reaching 125 to 150 miles per hour, with pods departing as often as every 30 seconds.

In May 2019, the Boring Company won a $48.7 million project to shuttle people underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center. The project was scheduled for completion by 2021, with the potential for future expansion along the Strip and to Allegiant Stadium and McCarran International Airport.

Boring of the first tunnel began on November 15, 2019, and is expected to be complete by March 2020.

Other major excavation projects have been undertaken in the realms of mining and drilling. They do not, however, attract as much attention as do tunneling projects because they usually occur in remote locations, where people are unlikely to see them. The largest man-made excavation in the world 55

is the Bingham Canyon Mine (known as “Kennecott Copper Mine” among locals) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. It is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history —upwards of 19 million tons—and is said to be visible to the naked eye from an orbiting space shuttle.

The Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit in the Oquirrh Mountains. It opened in 1906 using the most advanced equipment of the time—the rudimentary steam shovel—and the work must have progressed very slowly by today’s standards.

The mine is still in operation today, albeit with much more modern equipment. Over the years, the digging has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.6 miles deep, 2.5 miles wide, and covering an area of 1,900 acres. Employing some 2,000 workers, 450,000 tons of material are removed from the mine daily. It is one of the top-producing copper mines in the world, with more than 18.7 million tons having been excavated. Every year, Kennecott produces Bingham Canyon Mine approximately 300 thousand tons of copper, along with 13.7 tons of gold, 124 tons of silver, 10,000 tons of molybdenum, and about 1 million tons of sulfuric acid (a by-product of the smelting process). The value of the resources extracted from the Bingham Canyon Mine is greater than the Comstock Lode, Klondike, and California gold rush mining regions combined.

Mining techniques can be divided into two common excavation types: surface mining and sub-surface—also known as underground—mining. Today, surface mining (such as the Bingham Canyon Mine) is much more common, and produces, for example, 85% of minerals (excluding petroleum 56

and natural gas) in the United States, as well as 98% of metallic ores. Surface mining is much less expensive, but there are very few locations in the world today where valuable minerals and ores are still extant near the surface, and those sites are already being mined. Sub-surface mining is usually resorted to only when the material being sought is very valuable—such as gold and silver.

Sub-surface mining consists of digging tunnels or shafts into the earth to reach buried ore deposits. Ore for processing and waste rock for disposal are brought to the surface through the tunnels and shafts. Heavy machinery is used in mining to explore and develop sites, to remove and stockpile overburden, to break and remove rocks of various hardness and toughness, to process the ore, and to carry out reclamation projects after the mine is closed. Bulldozers, drills, explosives, and trucks are all necessary for excavating the land. Large drills are used to sink shafts, excavate stopes, and obtain samples for analysis.

Trams are used to transport miners, minerals, and waste. Lifts carry machinery and miners both into and out of the mines, and to move rock and ore out.

AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng Gold Mine, located southwest of Johannesburg in South Africa, was developed beginning in 1981, and is currently the deepest mine in the world. The operating depth ranged from between 10,367 feet to 12,598 feet below the surface in late 2018. The trip from the surface to the bottom of the mine takes over an hour. Ongoing expansions are expected to extend the operating depth further to 14,000 feet. The mine is located in an area with extremely harsh conditions for hard rock mining, with outside air temperatures as high as 113° F. The temperature of the Mponeng Gold Mine

57

rock reaches 151° F, and the mine pumps slurry ice underground to cool the tunnel air to below 86° F. A mixture of concrete, water, and rock is packed into excavated areas, which further acts as an insulator.

Mponeng is considered to be one of the most substantial gold mines in the world. Over 6,000 tons of rock are excavated each day and, in 2018, it produced 265,000 ounces of gold.

At a price as low as $550 per ounce of gold (the 2020 price is about $1,500 per ounce), the mine only needs to extract 0.35 ounces of gold per ton of rock excavated to remain profitable.

As of December 2018, the ore reserves remaining at Mponeng were estimated to be 46.18 million ounces.

The world’s largest underground mine is Kiirunavaara Mine in Kiruna, Sweden. With 280 miles of roads, 45 million tons of ore produced annually, and a depth of 4,170 feet, it is also one of the most modern underground mines.

Drilling is the mode of excavation primarily used for wells. The objective is the removal of liquid resources—water, oil, or gas—from underground. Traditionally, water wells were dug by hand, but these days they are frequently drilled.

They typically range from 10 to 60 feet in depth. Oil wells and gas wells tend to be much larger and are drilled much deeper—6,000 feet and more.

Oil wells and gas wells are quite similar to one another. Oil wells usually produce gas as a byproduct. Disposal of the gas can be a problem if there are no pipelines nearby for delivering it to the consumer, so it may be burned off at the well site in a practice known as “production flaring.” Natural-gas-specific wells are wells drilled exclusively for natural gas and contain little or no oil. Natural gas tends to be contained within the underground rock itself, and the rock must be broken to release the gas. This is accomplished by a process called “hydraulic fracturing” (informally referred to as “fracking”), whereby a fluid consisting of water, sand, and chemicals under high pressure is injected into the rock formation via the well. When the hydraulic pressure is removed from the well, the sand (or other proppant) holds the fractures open.

58

The earliest oil wells in modern times were drilled percussively, by repeatedly raising and dropping a cable tool into the earth. In the 20th century, cable tools were largely replaced with rotary drilling, which could drill boreholes to much greater depths and in less time. Until the 1970s, most oil wells were vertical, although lithological and mechanical imperfections generally caused them to deviate at least slightly from true vertical. Modern directional drilling technologies, however, allow for strongly deviated wells which can, given sufficient depth and with the proper tools, actually become horizontal. This is of great value, as the reservoir rocks, which contain the hydrocarbons, are usually horizontal or nearly horizontal; a horizontal wellbore placed in a production zone has more surface area in the production zone than a vertical well, resulting in a higher production rate. The use of deviated and horizontal drilling has also made it possible to reach reservoirs several miles away from the drilling location (extended-reach drilling), allowing for the production of hydrocarbons located below sites where it is difficult to place a drilling rig, are environmentally sensitive, or are populated.

The Berkut Oil Platform is the largest in the world, weighing over 200,000 tons (topside only, not including the underwater gravity-based structure (GBS). It is located in the Sakhalin-1 oil field off the Russian Pacific Coast. The platform is built on a gravity-based structure fixed to the seabed at a depth of 114 feet. Construction of the GBS alone required 136,000 tons of concrete and 30,000 tons of steelreinforcing bar. The topside, which weighs over 47,000 tons, is 344 feet long, 196 feet wide, and 472 feet high—about as tall as a 50-story building.

Berkut Oil Platform 59

Transporting and installing it on the GBS in 2014 required revolutionary methods and broke several world records. The platform is subjected to sub-arctic conditions and had to be constructed to withstand the most extreme conditions. It can hold up to seismic shocks, waves up to 60 feet tall, and sea ice as thick as 6.5 feet. It has its own autonomous power supply and can keep working at temperatures as low as -47 degrees F. The Berkut is built to extract 5 million tons of oil each year from an oil field with an expected capacity of 64 million tons. Costing $12 billion, the platform was financed by the Sakhalin-1 Consortium—made up of oil companies from the United States, Russia, Japan, and India.

Trying to determine which oil well is the deepest can result in considerable confusion because the “deepest” (below the Earth’s surface) is often not differentiated from the “longest” (total borehole length, including horizontal sections). In the Chayavo oil field, a part of the Sakhalin-I project taking place in the Okhotsk Sea off Russia’s east coast, 9 of the 10 world’s longest wells were drilled between 2003 and 2017. All of them were over 40,000 feet (7.5 miles) long. In November 2017, the latest record-setting longest well was drilled to a length of 56,000 feet (10.6 miles). It appears that all of these wells used extended reach or horizontal drilling technology. Indisputably, the deepest well (distance below the surface of the Earth) is the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

The Kola Superdeep Borehole, located in western Russia on the Kola Peninsula just 6 miles from the border with Norway, holds the record for vertically drilled depth. The Kola Superdeep Borehole is not actually a well; it is, rather, the result of a scientific drilling project by the Soviet Union. The objective Kola Superdeep Borehole 60

of the project, which began on May 24, 1970, was to drill as deeply as possible into the Earth’s crust in an attempt to sample the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle, which lies 6–7 miles below the ocean floor and 24–30 miles beneath typical continental crusts).

Several boreholes were drilled by branching from a central hole. The deepest, SG-3, with a diameter of 23.9 inches, reached 40,230 feet (7.619 miles) in 1989. That’s 15 times the height of the world’s tallest building—the 2,716-foot-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai—which is more than 2 times the world record for a hot-air balloon flight (21,000 feet), more than the highest cruising altitude of modern passenger jets (38,000 feet), more than the height of Mount Everest (20,029 feet), and more than the deepest point in the ocean (36,070 feet in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench). As of December 2019, it is the deepest artificial point on Earth, The project was terminated in 1995. The deepest hole ever drilled failed not because of lack of money or time, but because of rock physics at depth. In drilling, it’s all about pressure, resistance. and temperature. The deeper the hole, the more important each of these factors becomes. In the case of the Kola Superdeep Borehole, temperature was the critical factor. Near the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle, temperatures can reach as high as 1,832 degrees F. In ultra-deep boreholes, the temperature can reach 356 degrees F at a depth of 39,370 feet.

At a depth of approximately 39,000 feet, rock begins to act more like a plastic solid than a rigid solid. Rock temperatures of several hundred degrees required that the drilling fluid be refrigerated before being sent to the cutting face of the drill. As the drill bits burned out and were removed for replacement, the hole simply flowed closed, and the rock had to be re-drilled.

Each excavation megaproject is different—there is no blueprint or shortcut for building a world-changing megaproject. A unique set of circumstances must be 61

considered for each, and each must be designed and built from the ground up, often amidst considerable amounts of red tape and criticism. Those who undertake megaprojects embrace the unknown, even when faced with incredible amounts of risk and massive cost overruns. Successful megaprojects, however, can accomplish things that have never been done before. They can be pinnacles of human achievement, and spectacles such as the Panama Canal and the US Interstate Highway System have already changed the world.

Detailed below are five of the world’s largest megaprojects currently under construction: Al Maktoum International Airport, Dubai – No other airport would prepare one for the scale of Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport, which extends over more than 21 square miles. The facility is designed to handle 200 wide-body aircraft at a time. The airport’s second expansion phase alone has an estimated cost of more than $32 billion. Originally scheduled for completion in 2018, the latest expansion phase has been delayed, with no definite completion date.

Dubailand, Dubai Three entire Walt Disney Worlds can fit inside the Dubailand complex. At 107 square miles in size, the $64-billion Dubailand will have six types of properties: theme parks, sports venues, eco-tourism destinations, health facilities, science attractions, and hotels. It will also have the world’s largest hotel, with 6,500 rooms and a 10-millionsquare-foot mall. The project is scheduled for completion in 2025.

South-North Water Transfer Project, China – The north of China is home to almost 50 percent of China’s population, but it has only about 20 percent of the country’s water resources. To remedy this imbalance, China has funded the construction of three huge canals—each more than 600 miles long—that will carry water to the north from China’s three largest rivers. The project has a 48-year construction schedule. When completed, it will supply 1 trillion gallons of water each year.

62

London Crossrail Project – The world’s first underground train system continues to grow, adding 26 miles of tunnel that will eventually connect 40 stations. The estimated cost of construction is $23 billion. The project is scheduled for completion in phases, with the first new line—the Elizabeth line—going into service in 2019, followed by the remaining lines.

High-Speed Railway, California –Work on California’s high-speed train began in 2015 and is scheduled for completion in 2029. It will connect eight of the 10 largest cities in the state and reach from San Diego in the south to San Francisco in the north. The project will be completed in two phases: Phase 1 will connect Los Angeles to San Francisco; Phase 2 will extend connections to San Diego and Sacramento. The train, capable of speeds up to 200 miles per hour, will be 100 percent electric and will be powered entirely by renewable energy.

63

Appendix A

Harvesting “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

—Bible, Galatians 6:7 For thousands of years, digging has been primarily associated with preparing the soil to plant seeds. After the seeds are planted, they are supported in their growth, and the mature plants are then harvested at the end of the growing season.

The plants are eventually eaten to provide sustenance— the final objective of the whole process. Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of the grain or pulse as part of the harvesting process.

Traditionally, a scythe or a sickle was used for reaping.

Today, on smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season.

On large mechanized farms, harvesting Scything

64

utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, such as the combine harvester. The modern combine harvester, or simply combine, is a versatile machine designed to efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining three separate harvesting operations—reaping, threshing, and winnowing—into a single process. Reaping is the cutting of the crop; Combine Harvester threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of the crop from the chaff to which it is attached; and winnowing is the process of separating the crop from the chaff.

Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn (maize), sorghum, soybeans, flax (linseed), sunflowers, and canola. The separated straw, left lying on the field, comprises the stems and any remaining leaves of the crop with limited nutrients left in it. The straw is then either chopped, spread on the field and ploughed back in, or baled for livestock bedding.

Combines are equipped with removable headers, each of which is designed for a particular crop. The standard header is used for handling grain, there is another for soybeans, another for corn, and so on. Self-propelled combines can be fitted with special tracks instead of tires, or tires with tread measuring almost 10 inches deep, to facilitate harvesting rice.

65

Index A agriculture 6, 10, 19, 23, 78 Al Maktoum Airport 62 auger 19, 22 B backhoe 21, 22, 25 Berkut Oil Platform 59, 60 “Big Dig” 52, 53 Bingham Canyon Mine 56 blast 28, 29 bore 6, 22, 24, 28, 29, 34, 35, 44, 51, 53, 54, 55 Boring Company, The (TBC) 54, 55 bulldozer 25, 32 C Central Artery/Tunnel 50, 52 Channel Tunnel 50, 51 combine harvester 65 cultivator 14, 21 D dig 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 19, 22, 25, 26, 33, 44, 69 drill 19, 28, 29, 30, 59, 61 dump truck 27, 33 E excavator 23, 24, 25, 26, 31 F farm 19, 23, 65 fork 14

66

G garden 13, 14, 16 gas 26, 28, 29, 30, 57, 58, 76, 79 grader 27, 34 Great Pyramid of Giza 36 Great Wall of China 36, 38, 39 H harrow 20, 21 harvest 13, 14, 65 Hibernia Drilling Platform 35 High-Speed Railway 55, 63 hoe 13, 14 I Interstate Highway System 46, 47, 50, 62 K Kola Superdeep Borehole 60, 61 L loader 22, 25, 32 London Crossrail Project 63 M mattock 15 megaproject 52, 54, 61 mining 6, 10, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 50, 55, 56, 57 Mponeng Gold Mine 57, 58 N New York City Subway 43, 46

O oil 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 38, 58, 59, 60, 79 P Panama Canal 40, 41, 42, 43, 62 plow 14, 17, 19, 20, 21 posthole digger 15 S shovel 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 23, 31, 56 spade 11, 12, 13, 14 State Route 99 Tunnel 6, 53 T trencher 26, 33 trowel 13 tunnel 6, 28, 29, 34, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 63 tunnel boring machine (TBM) 28, 29, 54 W Water Transfer Project 62 well 23, 30, 37, 44, 45, 50, 51, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86

67

Books by David Ritchey (Note: * = literary award)

The H.I.S.S. of the A.S.P. (2003) An “Anomalously Sensitive Person (ASP)” exhibits high levels of sensitivity, not only in the emotional realm, but in the physiological, cognitive, altered states of consciousness, and transpersonal (“metaphysical,”) realms as well. The traits of the ASP, which originate in the structure and chemistry of the brain, have important psychological, medical, educational, and social implications. This book investigates the links between a person’s sensitivities and a host of other factors related to biology (“nature”), history (“nurture”) and temperament (“personality”).

The Magic of Digital Fine Art Photography (2010) This book is a collection of fine art photographs created by David Ritchey. Fine art photographs are those that are created to fulfill the creative vision of the photographer, to express her/his artistic perceptions and emotions. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism, commercial photography, and snapshots.

26 Card Tricks (2011) Written specifically for the intermediate level magician who wants to add some new card tricks with a standard deck to his repertoire, this book presents 26 Card Tricks in clear, precise, easy-to-follow detail. It also provides refreshers for the techniques required to perform all of those tricks and offers suggestions for creating new routines.

Something About SCRABBLE™ (2011) This book is written for the average-level living room Scrabble player who generally scores about 250 points per game, and who would like to become a strong living room player (or a competent club player) with an average score of 300 - 350 points per game. It includes concepts and word lists mandatory 68

for excelling at the game as well as an invaluable pullout “cribsheet.”

Why We Are Fascinated by Dogs (2012) Most people, when they interact with dogs, do so as if dogs have consciousness, and deal with the world in much the same way that humans, at least small children, do. Moreover, many dog lovers believe that their dog thinks of her/himself as being human. This book asserts that dogs are wonderful, loving, social beings who are conscious, intelligent, and capable of exhibiting extraordinary abilities — much like the best of human beings; it is full of fascinating anecdotes that serve to enhance our love and admiration for our canine companions.

A Sense of Betrayal (2012) In the year that he spent as a young naval officer in Vietnam, David Ritchey was frequently a first-hand observer of the ubiquitous corruption — not just on the part of the Vietnamese, but on the part of the Americans as well. Because senior officials cared primarily about their own power, prestige, position, and pelf (money), the lives of many young Americans were needlessly sacrificed. Ritchey writes about the Kafkaesque nature of his own experiences, and vividly illustrates how the dynamics of war can shake anyone’s faith in civilization.

Reviewing the Montauk Legend (2013) ** The Montauk Legend, has to do with UFOs, invisibility, time travel, teleportation, mind control, weather control, conspiracies, and other similarly esoteric subjects. The legend was sufficiently bizarre that David Ritchey decided to dig deeper in an attempt to determine which elements, if any, were factually based. He enlisted the assistance of a psychic colleague to find out what she said “really” happened there, and the results of their explorations make for fascinating reading.

69

Presidents in The Crosshairs (2013) * Of the 44 Presidents who have served this country, 4 have been shot and killed while in office — that’s one in eleven. By way of comparison, one in 57 Americans who served in uniform in Vietnam were killed in combat. These numbers suggest that an individual is five times more likely to be violently killed as President of the United States than as a member of the U.S. military serving in a war zone. Those Presidents who have been shot and killed by assassins are: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John Kennedy. Those Presidents who have been shot and wounded by would-be assassins are: Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan.

Understanding the Anomalously Sensitive Person (2014) ** Not only are “Anomalously Sensitive Persons (ASPs)” different from the norm in having heightened levels of sensitivities, they are also likely to be different in purely objective criteria — such things as hypopigmentation, Non-Right-Handedness, and having been born as one of a multiple birth. Once they have mastered the challenges of their uniqueness, however, they are positioned to become modern day shamans who help others to understand, and to live within the framework of a life-enhancing world view that, in early times, was known as “wyrd.”

Descended from the Gods? (2014) **** In his quest to comprehend the early origins of “Anomalously Sensitive Persons (ASPs)” — those who are unusually sensitive in a variety of realms — David Ritchey found that the theory of creationism and the theory of evolution both had serious shortcomings. He decided therefore, to pursue his inquiry from the perspective of the theory of interventionism as espoused by the ancient Sumerians, which suggests that about 450,000 years ago, a group of advanced beings (who the Sumerians called the “Anunnaki”) arrived on Earth and intervened in the development of humans by undertaking an ongoing series of genetic experiments using humans as subjects. Today’s ASPs might well be direct descendants of the Anunnaki’s test subjects.

70

Those Who Know the Wyrd (2014) * Given the current state of the world, the survival of humanity may well depend on our adopting the worldview of wyrd that was central to the practices of the early Anglo-Saxon shamans.

Wyrd is based on the premises that: all things and all events are intimately interconnected on all levels of reality; any event, anywhere, affects everything else, everywhere; everything, everywhere, is alive — that is, consciousness is all-pervasive; body, mind and spirit are all one; and the entire universe is sacred and has purpose and meaning.

Tales from the Depths (2014) * The Great Lakes cover approximately 800 miles from east to west and 500 miles north to south and contain 21% of the world’s surface fresh water. Storms on the Great Lakes are every bit as powerful as storms on the world’s oceans, but mariners on the Lakes have little maneuvering room, and shipwrecks have been a common occurrence. People generally estimate the number of shipwrecks on the Great Lakes to have been 100 - 500 over the years rather than the actual number of 6000+ with the loss of 30,000+ lives.

On Conflict (2015) The existence of conflict is an ongoing part of the human condition. Instances of conflict can be resolved peacefully, often with constructive results, or they can escalate into aggression and violence, generally with destructive results. This book looks at how conflict generally manifests in the different stages (age groups) of a person’s life with the final chapter focusing on the currently declining rates of conflict and efforts being made to continue that trend.

Keep the Colors Flying (2015) * While a significant naval presence on the Great Lakes (and Lake Champlain) was relatively short-lived — from the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 to the end of the War of 1812 in 1815 — several noteworthy naval battles 71

took place there. In those actions a number of U.S. Naval heroes were recognized. Among them were Benedict Arnold on Lake Champlain during the Revolutionary War, Thomas Macdonough on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812, and Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

The Deadliest Pandemic (2015) * The 1918 avian influenza pandemic killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in 25 weeks than HIV/AIDS killed in 25 years. A new strain of flu, labeled “H5N1,” has recently emerged. H5N1 is good at killing — having a mortality rate in excess of 50% —but it is not yet good at spreading. Given that this virus is at least 10–20 times more deadly than the 1918 strain, if it mutates to the point of becoming equally contagious, it could then rival the ferocity of some strains of Ebola and be as contagious as the common cold — in which case, at a minimum, it would kill 500 million people worldwide.

Locked and Loaded (2015) * In a representative year, total deaths by firearms in the U.S. (32,774) were approximately 12 times higher than in a sample of seven other developed countries with a collective population of roughly the same size. Gun control advocates suggest that the cause is the high prevalence of firearms in the United States, which is seven times more per 100,000 residents than it is in the comparison countries. Gun rights advocates suggest that “the right to keep and bear arms,” as specified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is of paramount importance, and that firearms deaths would actually be reduced if more American civilians carried guns.

From Aardvarks to Zyzzyvas (2016) * Word games can be beneficial to us in a number of ways, most especially, perhaps, because they promote social interactions and increase time involved with family and friends. They are also an absorbing way to spend our solitary time, and while 72

they are generally engaged in for their entertainment value, they serve an educational purpose as well. There are scores, if not hundreds of types of word games available, and this book focuses on several of those that are the most popular or most wellknown.

Pyramidal Mystique (2016) * There are many hundreds of pyramids around the world, having been built by a variety of different cultures in a number of different eras. Those that appear to be either the most important or the most representative show up in North America, South America, Central America, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, but there are multiple other analogous structures located elsewhere. This book looks closely at a few of those pyramids, with an emphasis on their descriptions and histories, their construction and their purpose.

The Enigma of Baalbek (2016) In Baalbek, Lebanon, the ruins of the monumental temple complex are one of the most extraordinary and enigmatic holy places of ancient times. Most conventional researchers claim that all of the structures were constructed by the Romans, primarily in the time frame from 100 BC to 200 AD. Alternative researchers, however, suggest that the underlying platform (with many stones much larger than those used in the Great Pyramids of Giza) on which the visible structures were built, was constructed at a much earlier date, perhaps as early as 10,450 BC — and that it was built by a race of technologically advanced ancient beings.

American Demagogues (2016) A demagogue is person, especially an orator or a political leader, who gains power by arousing people’s emotions, passions, and prejudices rather than by using rational arguments.

Democracies are instituted to ensure freedom for all and popular control over government authority, but demagogues exploit 73

that freedom to gain a level of power for themselves that overrides the rule of law, thereby undermining democracy.

Invitations to War (2016) When war is likely to break out, most civilized countries try to make it appear that they are not the aggressor, but rather the innocent victim. In that role, the country is more likely to garner support from its populace and the rest of the world. Any number of maneuverings can be used to push the opposition into attacking first. That has happened in a number of wars in which the United States has become involved, and a brief. synopsis of each of those wars is presented in this book.

Enduring American Mysteries (2016) Countless mysteries are available to us and, if we choose, we can become quite engrossed in trying to figure out some of them. This book provides four such mysteries for consideration: (1) America’s Stonehenge — a site in New Hampshire with numerous stone structures and astronomical alignments; (2) Cahokia Mounds — a vast complex in Illinois containing many large earthen mounds; (3) Roanoke Island — an English colony in (then) Virginia that was founded in the late 1500s and disappeared shortly thereafter, and (4) Newport Tower — an old circular stone tower in Rhode Island.

Pyramids of Fire (2016) * Volcanoes have done much to shape the face of the planet, alter climatic conditions, and change the course of history.

The most powerful of them, Supervolcanoes have lifetimes and eruption cycles that are so long that there have been no major supervolcano eruptions during the course of recorded human history. Nevertheless, the eruptions of active lesser volcanoes on Earth today can have significant consequences. This book looks at the origins of volcanoes, the nature and history of major eruptions, the world’s most famous and the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, the USA’s most dangerous volcanoes, and the supervolcano, the Yellowstone Caldera.

74

Noteworthy UFO Cases (2017) * The Universe is so old and so vast, and there are so many potentially habitable planets contained within it, that statistically it is almost a foregone conclusion that sentient life exists elsewhere — not just on Earth. According to the Drake Equation, there are likely to be approximately 10,000 active, communicative, extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. The odds are that any number of these beings are traveling around the cosmos in their spacecraft, and from time to time they visit the planet Earth. This book is about earthly UFO sightings, which may be manifestations of those visitations, and sixteen of them are closely examined. The presence of Extraterrestrials on Earth has enormous socio-economic implications for our future, and this is discussed in some depth.

One At Time Or All At Once (2017) * Because of the media frenzies that surround multiple murders, most adult Americans have at least a vague awareness of the serial killers, spree killers, and mass murderers that have operated in our midst in recent history. This book profiles some of the more infamous perpetrators in each category and delineates their actions forthrightly and concisely so that the reader can fully understand what was involved in each situation.

Spies Uncovered (2017) * A spy who has been uncovered can no longer continue to be a spy. The nature of spying is such that a spy, in order to be successful, must remain an unknown entity. The uncovering of a spy usually occurs when he has been captured and his captors reveal his identity, but some spies, albeit very few, reveal their own identities after they have retired. In this book, eight uncovered spies have been profiled, each with his own unique story.

However, because they have been uncovered, and because of the omnipresent deception and misinformation in the field, they should not be perceived as being representative of spies in general.

75

Geniuses Among Us (2017) * A normal or average I.Q. is 100, an I.Q. of 130+ is considered to be in the “gifted” range. and an I.Q. of 145+ is considered to be in the “very gifted” (or “genius”) range. In the 1980s, researchers began to recognize that there was more to giftedness than just the linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligences measured by I.Q. tests. Other intelligence included: musical, visuo-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, inter-personal, and intra-personal. While an individual may qualify as a genius in one of these other intelligences without an I.Q. of 145+, statistical precision is lacking. Most geniuses are introverted intuitives with a high level of creativity and a high level of mental illness, particularly mood disorders. In this book a number of geniuses are profiled: 8 with mental disorders, 11 from the historical past, and 12 contemporary.

Pumped Up (2017) Just about anything that is inflatable can qualify as a “balloon.” “Inflatables” can be utilized for a broad variety of purposes. In addition to regular ol’ balloons, there are aeronautical balloons (either hot air or gas, or a combination thereof); there are airships (such as blimps, dirigibles, and zeppelins); there are inflatables that are used by the military and the scientific community; there are inflatable medical devices; there are inflatable recreational devices; there are inflatable safety devices; there are comfort-related inflatable devices; there are inflatable buildings; and there are a host of other miscellaneous inflatable devices. Example of all of these are discussed in this book, and you are likely to find the subject matter much more interesting than you might have suspected.

A Brief History of Hurricanes (2017) Tropical storms formed in the North Atlantic Basin with winds in excess of 74 mph are spoken of as “hurricanes.” Hurricanes derive their energy through the evaporation of warm water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation.

76

In addition to strong winds and rain, hurricanes are capable of generating high waves, damaging storm surge, and tornadoes.

Between 1900 and 2016, there were 633 hurricanes in the North Atlantic Basin that collectively caused 103,000+ fatalities and were responsible for $392+ billion (USD not adjusted for inflation) in damages. Twenty-four of the most noteworthy of those hurricanes are profiled in this book. Those 24, combined, caused 65,000+ fatalities and were responsible for $492+ billion (adjusted for inflation to 2016 USD) in damages.

What Is Truth? (2018) When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate more than 2,000 years ago, Pilate asked of him the question, “What is truth,” but would not stay for an answer. Today, in the 20th century, that question has more relevance than ever before, because truth appears to have lost its “absolute” status, and is now held to be something that is only “relative.” Lack of consensus about truth can only lead to chaos and confusion. This book examines the historic perception of truths, fallacies, and untruths; it looks at the tenuous status of truth in today’s US political environment; and it explores the underpinnings of the current “post-truth” environment.

Transportation Disasters (2018) A disaster can be thought of as a serious disruption in the functioning of a community or society involving widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses and impacts, which exceed the ability of those affected to cope using their own resources. Disasters can occur in all of the four major transportation categories — aviation, maritime, railway, and roadway. “Pseudo-disasters” can also be created by the media, which, by deftly hyping a relatively minor incident, can hold the public spellbound for months. With the scale of transportation rising, the sizes of airplanes, ships, and other means of carrying people and cargo from one point to another escalating, the likelihood of significant disasters continues to increase with the numbers. In this book, a number of disasters in each major transportation category are profiled.

77

Up to The Eaves: Major Snowstorms (2018) * Snowstorms occur when tiny supercooled cloud droplets freeze and fall through the Earth’s atmosphere to the ground.

Once on the ground, nature moves the fallen snow around, usually by blowing it into drifts, and less commonly by avalanches on steep slopes, or by glaciers which develop after accumulated snow has metamorphosed into glacial ice. Snow affects such human activities as agriculture, transportation, winter sports, and warfare. It is also an important factor for consideration of loads on structures. Just about anyone who has experience snowstorms has one that s/he recalls as “the big one.” One person’s “big one,” however, may be run-of-the-mill for someone else. Throughout the history of this country, there have been any number of “big ones,” and this book profiles 20 of those that objectively seem to merit the appellation.

Everybody Loves Conspiracy Theories (2018) ** There probably exist thousands of conspiracy theories about hundreds of subjects, but a broad overview of them can be attained by grouping them into categories and explicating representative examples within each category — as has been done in this book. In the era of the Trump presidency, conspiracy theories have become writ large in ways that we could not have imagined as recently as three years ago, because his continual espousal of such theories, has pushed them into the mainstream.

Whereas conspiracy theories have always been part of American politics, they’ve tended to appeal only to fringe audiences, but they now seem to dominate the mainstream debate.

The Automobile: An American Cultural Icon (2018) * The year 1886, regarded as the birth year of the modern car, German inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, a simple vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. Today’s automobiles are much more complex, having a host of controls for driving and parking, as well as other controllable devices for safety and comfort. Controls continue to evolve in response to new technologies, for example the electric car and 78

the integration of mobile communications. Rapidly increasing oil prices, concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws, and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. This book takes a look at the historical development of cars, and speculates about the nature of the automobiles of the future.

Are We Ready for Artificial Intelligence? (2018) The contemporary field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research was founded in 1956, and since then ever more sophisticated AI agents have been developed, resulting in Artificial Intelligence now being a part of our everyday lives. In all likelihood, human-level artificial intelligence will be achieved before the end of the 21st century, and once that occurs, a superintelligent system is likely to follow very quickly thereafter. Sufficiently intelligent software would be able to reprogram and improve itself, and through a process of recursive self-improvement would soon completely surpass all human capabilities.

A significant concern is that such exceptional abilities might manifest in ways that pose a threat to humans. The worst-case scenario is that the AI agent might decide that it is not in its best interest to support the continued existence of humanity, and that could spell the end of homo sapiens. Clearly, the problem of control must be made a top priority, and it must be completely resolved before superintelligence is brought into existence.

They Say It’s Impossible (2018) The beliefs that certain things are impossible have prevented, or at least significantly delayed, many potential accomplishments. Many of our great advances can be attributed to those who “did not know it was impossible, so they did it.” Chapter 1 of this book looks at mistaken beliefs that were often held for several centuries simply because people did not believe that any proffered alternative was possible. Chapter 2 explores a number of situations in which it was generally believed that something could not be accomplished, but somebody pushed forward anyway, and by doing so ultimately changed the lives of us all.

79

Chapter 3 discusses things that are currently considered impossible and speculates about ways in which they might be proven to be otherwise.

Noble New Nation (2019) This book is a dystopian political satire written by two different narrators, about a highly charismatic, yet extremely controversial, politician who was elected to the presidency of the Nation in 2016. The first narrator is a devotee of the man he speaks of as “Our Illustrious Leader” (as do other devotees) and writes from the perspective of one who believes his subject can do no wrong. The second is a PhD candidate in political science who is researching his dissertation on “the strategy and tactics of a political ‘outsider’.” He attempts to tell the story from a purely objective, academic perspective. The two perspectives are strikingly dissimilar. The story ends abruptly when “the leader” is assassinated on August 21, 2018.

Confronting the Earth’s Tribulations (2019) Since the beginning of its existence, the Earth has been subjected to countless trials and tribulations. The planet was formed in an environment of chaos and destruction involving astronomical collisions, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

Since taking shape, the Earth’s mettle has been tested again and again by these forces as well as ice ages, blizzards, floods and tsunamis, cyclones, wild fires, man-made pollution, and humancaused climate change. I decided on six subjects about which to write, and have organized them into sections herein, namely: Cosmic Billiards (astronomical collisions), The Last Ice Age (ice ages), When the Earth Shudders (earthquakes), Big Waters Rolling (floods and tsunamis), Infernal Wild Fires (wild fires), and Killing Her Slowly (pollution and climate change).

Coming to our Senses (2019) Our senses permit us to perceive and function in the world in which we live. There are five primary senses that are traditionally recognized by western science: sight, hearing, taste, 80

smell, and touch. In some Asian cultures, a sixth sense, that of the mind and the mind objects it perceives is also recognized.

Other sensory modalities are known to exist—including temperature, kinesthesia, pain, balance, and vibration—but are not widely recognized. Most animals have sensory systems analogous to those of humans and some have others as well, including the ability to sense electric fields, magnetic fields, and environmental moisture. The mind serves to determine the utility of sense perceptions, so intelligence plays a significant role in modulating the senses.

Popular Primary Pets (2019) Hundreds of millions of animals are kept by humans as pets.

They run the gamut from large mammals such as dogs, cats, and horses to fish, reptiles, and arachnids (such as tarantulas). Most pet owners are fiercely loyal to their animals and tend to think of them as being the best type of pet one could have. Generally, though, when people think of pets, they are most likely to first think of dogs, cats, and horses. It is about these three types of animals that this book is written. Whether you are a “dog person,” a “cat person,” a “horse person,” or just a person who has a passing interest in one or more of these animals, I hope you will find what I have to say both informative and fun to read.

Interesting Numbers for Interested Folks (2019) I’m not a mathematician, nor do I qualify as being a scientist, but I am a very curious person, and there’s lots about numbers to stimulate one’s curiosity. For example: Why is the length of a mile 5,280 feet?

What is the “Golden Ratio?”

Why is time based on units of 60 rather than on units of 10?

What is the largest meaningful number that exists?

Why is the number 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 important?If questions such as these stimulate your interest, this book is for you. If not, there are lots of incurious people in the world and you have plenty of company. In this book, Chapter 1 is about numbers in general; Chapter 2 covers memorable num81

bers; Chapter 3 deals with weights and measures; and Chapter 4 discusses extraordinary numbers.

Seeking the Earth’s Treasures (2020) Modern humans, had their origins in Africa about 250,000 years ago and began to migrate elsewhere about 100,000 years ago, presumably exploring their environs wherever they were.

The earliest explorations were by land, and these were followed by explorations by sea. Once the continentsand major islands had been discovered by sea, there was still a lot of exploring to be done inland from the coasts. Of particular interest were those discoveries that were superlatives—i.e., the biggest or smallest, the highest or lowest, the longest or shortest, the heaviest or lightest, the hottest or coldest, the fastest or slowest, etc. Categories in which superlatives have been noted include waterbodies, landforms, plants, animals, humans, and natural events.

Since the 1950s, the innate drive to explore has led humans beyond Earth and into space. Unmanned exploration of Deep Space is currently underway, and the United States’ spacecraft, Voyager 1, is now about 13.23 billion miles away from Earth.

It’s About Time (2020) Time, always there, is a major element in the lives of most people in the civilized world. We’ve gotten used to it, we accept it, we adapt to it on leap years and such, and we go about our daily business without giving it much thought. Some people, however, do think about it, and they have asked quite a few questions about it, some of which have been satisfactorily answered, some of which haven’t. For example: When did people start keeping track of time and why? By what means have people measured time? When did time begin? What exctly is spacetime? What role does the human mind play in time? Is time travel possible? Perhaps the most important question of all is, “What exactly is time?” These and other questions about time are addressed in this book.

82

Metaphysical Experiences: Are They Real? (2020) Metaphysical (parapsychological) experiences are the source of considerable controversy, especially about whether or not they are “real.” While the experiences are undoubtedly subjectively real for the experiencer, the reality status of the objective phenomenon is another matter. Scientists usually accept something as being real if its existence can be proven by scientific methodologies. Laypeople usually accept something as being real if it can be perceived by their senses. In common practice, “reality” is generally determined by consensus, and metaphysical experiences are not commonplace. Metaphysical experiencers, however, may have perceptual capabilities that transcend those of non-experiencers—perhaps because of neurological structuring or states of consciousness variables. In any event, their experiences cannot simply be dismissed as illusory.

These issues are covered in the first part of the book, which then goes on to discuss the nature of the various types of experiences and present striking first-hand accounts of specific individuals’ experiences.

Looking for a Few Good Critters: Marine Mammals (2020) Most people, when asked to name ten mammals off the top of their head, are likely to list only terrestrial mammals and don’t think to include marine mammals. It seems that we humans have an unconscious bias toward thinking of mammals as being terrestrial rather than maritime, perhaps because we ourselves are mammals, the dominant terrestrial mammals, and the other terrestrial mammals seem more like us than do the marine mammals. This is a book about all the marine mammals, and is divided by chapters into the four commonly recognized sub-groups: cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), sirenians (manatees, dugongs), pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, walruses), and fissipeds (polar bears, sea otters).

83

Sailing Through the Ages (2020) Austronesians were probably the first to invent ocean-going sailing technologies. Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians, about 3,000 years ago, were also among the earliest sailors. The Greeks sailed “Triremes” (with three levels of rowers) that had been introduced by the Phoenicians. The Norse were known for their “Longships,” and around 1000 AD, Leif Erikson was the first European to explore North America. Noteworthy sailing ventures include: Cristopher Columbus’ four trips to the Americas in 1492–1502; Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet, the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519–1522; the Spanish Armada of 1588, defeated by the English and then devastated by violent storms; a Spanish treasure fleet lost during a hurricane in 1715; Admiral Horatio Nelson’s overwhelming defeat of a French/ Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805; the first America’s Cup race wherein the yacht America bested the English Aurora in 1851; and Joshua Slocum’s first single-handed voyage around the world in 1895–1898. With today’s trailerable small boats, sailing is no longer exclusively a rich man’s sport. “Weekend sailors” regularly engage in both recreational sailing and the racing of dinghies and sailboats.

Rising to the Challenge of Space Flight (2020) The path to spaceflight began with the Chinese development of the kite in the 5th century BC. Later steps included manned balloons in the late 18th century, heavier-than-air manned flight in 1903, breaking the sound barrier in 1947, jet airliners in the late 1950s, jumbo jets in 1970, and the supersonic Concorde in 1976. On October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 was the first satellite to orbit Earth, and Yuri Gagarin, in 1961, aboard Vostok 1 was the first man in orbit. The United States’ Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Project Apollo led to Neil Armstrong, aboard Apollo 11, on July 21, 1969, becoming the first human to set foot on the Moon. Voyager 1, in August 2012, became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. The speed of light barrier presents challenges of distance and time that are unlikely to be met by the use of rocket propulsion in any of its current or hy84

pothesized forms. The solution presumably lies in some form of distortion in the space-time continuum that would permit matter to reach distant locations in less time than light could in normal or undistorted space-time.

Zap! The Story of Electricity (2020) The earliest humans were introduced to electricity by way of lightning strikes, and from lightning they got fire. Modern prime movers in the field of electrical research and invention have included: Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, and Albert Einstein. Electricity (along with the internal combustion engine) makes our modern way of life possible. Electricity also has its pitfalls. The hazards of ionizing radiation are well known, but there is considerable controversy about the potential dangers of non-ionizing radiation.

The Book of Noteworthy “Why” Questions (2020) Different people have different levels of curiosity. Some people are generally curious (about anything and everything), some are personally curious (about things that pertain specifically to themselves), and some are incurious (just taking things as they come without thinking much about them). For people who are generally curious, it doesn’t matter whether or not the subject matter is directly relevant to them. They just like to learn for the sake of learning, and this book is written for them.

They are inclined to be more interested in “why” and “how” questions than in “who,” “what,” “when” and “where” questions because the former lead to further questions whereas the latter usually just lead to a single datum of information.

Zap!: The Story of Electricity (2020) The earliest humans were introduced to electricity by way of lightning strikes, which occur worldwide about 100 times per second. From lightning, they got fire, and the control of fire proved to be a turning point in the cultural aspects of human evolution. Serious scientific research into electricity began with 85

Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite and string experiment of 1752 in which he proved that lightning is electricity. His work was followed by the work of other prime movers, and their contributions have made our modern way of life possible. Human biochemistry, thought, and action are all controlled by electricity, generated by neurons, which transmit information throughout the body in both chemical and electrical forms, and humans can also be affected by extracorporeal electromagnetic radiation.

A Frog’s Life (2020) In informal usage, the term “frog” usually refers to species that are aquatic or semi-aquatic and have smooth, moist skins; the term “toad” generally refers to species that are terrestrial with dry, “warty” skins. Both, however, are amphibians belonging to the order Anura and taxonomy does not differentiate between the two—all members of the order Anura being frogs. Typically, frogs lay their eggs in water, the eggs hatch into tadpoles, and the tadpoles ultimately metamorphose into frogs. Amphibians, including frogs, are said to be bellwethers of broader ecosystem health. More than one-third of frog species are considered to be threatened with extinction, and more than 120 species are believed to have become extinct since the 1980s. And then there’s Kermit...

Unlikely Heroes (2020) A hero has historically been defined as a person, almost always a man, who was an illustrious warrior, and who, in the face of danger, combated adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Likely heroes are to be found among those in the military, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, and such. Among the factors that can make a person unlikely to be a hero are age, disability, and character traits. Today, an individual can be considered a hero if, by their actions or characterological examples, they selflessly make significant positive contributions to the well-being of others.

For the actions of a protagonist to be considered heroic, no matter how positive the outcome might be, a component of in86

tentionality must be involved, and intentionality requires intelligence. Most animals lack the intelligence and intentionality necessary to qualify as heroes, but there are some, including chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, whales, dogs, cats, elephants, pigs, horses, and parrots, who have filled that role and whose stories are most interesting.

Sagacious Saying (2020) “Sayings,” more precisely spoken of as “adages,” are concise, memorable expressions that communicate an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of their long existence. Most adages are likely to be metaphorical rather than literal, having hidden meanings. “Old wives’ tales” are a type of adage, but unlike most adages, they tend to be literal rather than metaphorical. They do not attempt to moralize, but to teach lessons and make difficult concepts like death or coming of age easy for children to understand. Absent scientific explanations, people developed beliefs that gave meaning and structure to their worldviews so that things “made sense” to them.

If enough people shared the same belief about something, that belief, whether valid or not, became part of consensus reality and eventually became an old wives’ tale if it continued to hold sway even after advances in science had shown it to be incorrect.

87

About the Author

After being educated in economics at Yale University, I served for five years as an officer in the US Navy, including a year in Vietnam. Back in civilian life, I initially became a businessman as I had been trained to do but, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, I dropped out, got a divorce, moved to an old remote stone farmhouse, and took up fine art photography as my vocation, winning more than 60 awards over the next fifteen years.

During that period, I became fascinated with the psychology and neurology of both creativity and metaphysics, and returned to school to train as a psychotherapist. During my fifteen years of clinical practice, specializing in hypnotherapy, I undertook a twelve-year project to research and write about such subjects, publishing my first book, The H.I.S.S. of the A.S.P., in 2003. Writing proved to be every bit as rewarding as photography and it became my primary vocation. Being an inveterate learner, I focused on non-fiction subjects, enjoying the research as much as the writing. I now delve into anything and everything that piques my curiosity. The forty-plus books that I have written to date have won more than 25 literary awards.

Over the years, my avocations have included: scuba diving, sailing, skiing, tennis, golf, gardening, woodworking, dogs, magic, bridge, and Scrabble. I have two adult children, Harper and Mac, and one almost-adult grandchild, Brendan. I live in historic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and spend most of my time either writing or engaging in stimulating conversations over restaurant meals with my close friends.

88

DIG THIS! MOVING THE EARTH ONE BIT AT A TIME

Humans have been moving earth around for a long time—since well before the beginning of recorded history. The most basic early digging tool was the multi-purpose “digging stick.” The earliest shovels were probably fashioned from the shoulder blades (“scapula”) of large animals. They could be used for the removal of soil after it had been loosened by the digging stick. These days, shovels are generally used for light digging work, the heavier work being done by power equipment— initially steam shovels and later hydraulic equipment such as excavators, loaders, and bulldozers. Specialized underground work is accomplished by drills and tunnel boring machines.

History’s earth-moving megaprojects include the following: Great Pyramid of Khufu, Great Wall of China, Panama Canal, New York City Subway, Interstate Highway System, Channel Tunnel, Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), State Route 99 Tunnel, Bingham Canyon Mine, Mponeng Gold Mine, Berkut Oil Platform, and the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

David Ritchey

David Ritchey