is practically no change in the velocity around them. At the bayou there was no bottom solid enough to build on, and piles were driven 24 feet, sawed off and timbers laid thereon for a foundation. After intersecting the bayou, the size and shape was changed from round to egg shape, 36x54 inches, and this size continued on a grade of 1 foot in 1000 a distance of 2900 feet, where, after making another angle and crossing the bayou a second time, the size was again reduced to 28x42 inches which size was continued 2500 feet. The average depth of the large sized sewer was 19 feet; in some places being as deep as 23 feet and in sand. Manholes are built at intervals of about 300 feet, or at every crossing.

The main district sewers will be 18 inches in diameter with 12 inch laterals and 6 inch house connections, and will be on a grade of from I foot to 3 in 100, which I think will be sufficient to be self-cleansing.

The brick were hard burned and tested for lime, etc., by being immersed in water until thoroughly wet, and then laid by experienced men with Buffalo cement and sharp sand in proportion of 1 to 2.

The entire cost of main sewer was about $50,000.00, for which bonds of the city were issued.

H. C. THOMPSON,

City Engineer, in charge of Sewer Construction.

SURVEYS MADE

-FOR

Railroads, Water Supply, Sewerage

AND MUNICIPAL PUBLIC WORKS.

H. C. THOMPSON,

Civil Engineer and Surveyor. County Drain Commissioner.

WEST BAY CITY, MICHIGAN.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF RANDOLPH
NUTTING.

SOMETHING like twenty years ago, the Highway Commissioner of Pavilion, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, came to me to get me to survey the line of a highway that they wished to lay out in that township. The man said:

"We have been in the habit of employing Randolph Nutting to do our surveying in that part of the county, and I have had him at work on this job for a week, without accomplishing anything. I can't stand it any longer and I wish you would go and run out the line."

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'What is the matter with it?"

"Oh, nothing, only old Randolph has got cracked on religion. He always was a little off in the upper story, and now he is worse than ever. I got him out to run the line, and the first thing he did was to get down on his knees in the dirt and pray. Then he measured his chain to see if that was right and then he prayed again."

"What did he measure his chain with?"

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Oh, with a two foot-square. Then he went to get a corner to work from, and he spent the whole day digging and praying and puttering around that corner. Next day he began to run the line, but he had not gone more than forty rods when he had to get down and pray again and then go back and measure it over. Then he was dissatisfied with the starting point, and went back and fussed and dug and prayed over that, and so he kept going for a week."

I found it about an hour's work when I got there. It was not the first time I had heard of the eccentric surveyor, Randolph Nutting, or "Old Randolph" as he was more familiarly called, although I had never seen him.

A winter or two after that, I was employed to survey a section in a thinly settled tract in the southeast part of the county. It was nearly all heavily timbered with beech and maple, and cut up with long stretches of black ash, willow and tamarack swamp. There was a light snow on the ground, and as we were passing through a piece of low land, I noticed. a track in the snow leading up to a large, fallen, hollow sycamore tree. Thinking it some hunter's track, I followed it to the tree and looking into the hollow at the butt, I saw a rude old surveyor's compass, Jacob's staff and chain hid away in it.

"Hello," said one of the men, who was with me, "That is old Randolph's kit. He has been at work all alone over in

the big willow swamp, running out a section line. The willows are terrible thick over there, and he has been at it for more than a week, cutting lines through with his hatchet and setting stakes. He has got the brush trimmed out pretty near a rod wide for a mile, and stakes set up as high as his head every ten rods."

"Who is he at work for?"

"Oh, he is doing it on his own hook. He thinks they ought to have the line,run out, and likely he is out of money, and when he gets it done he will call on them for pay."

"But will they pay him?"

་་

Oh, yes, the old fellow has got to be taken care of somehow, and you can't give him anything. He won't take it. He only charges ten shillings a day and we may as well give it to him that way as any other. Besides, he is terrible accurate. He won't set a corner nor tell you anything about it till he knows it is right to a sixteenth of an inch. When he measures a line everything has got to be just so. It has got to be measured straight, and the chain has to be perfectly level. He always measures a line twice over, and if it does not come out alike to a quarter of an inch he will keep measuring it over till it does.'

Where does he stay?"

"Oh, he has got a hut over in the edge of a swamp about three miles from here that he makes a home of, but he goes all around the country. Sometimes he sleeps in barns or in hollow logs in the woods. Most any of us will keep him over night, or give him a meal, if he would take it, but as I said, you can't give him anything. If he has any money he will come to the house for a meal or lodging and he always pays just ten cents for a meal, no more and no less. If he is out of money and work, he will lay out around the stacks, or in a hollow log, till he can get a job. He will go to running a man's line, where he thinks it ought to be done, whether they hire him or not. Most of us take him in and board him while he is at it, and maybe furnish him some help. He generally manages to board out his wages before he gets through with a job.'

"Has not he any family or friends?"

"Only some sisters out near Vicksburg, and he won't live with them, or take anything from them without pay, anymore than from anybody else. They say he was disappointed in love when a young man, and has been cracked ever since.

"I noticed his tools were not in very good order. I should not think he could work with them."

"Oh, well, there are some of the boys that are always playing some trick on him, and they have just about spoiled his compass several times. He hardly ever uses a chain. He takes a piece of light wire four rods long, and puts handles on, and uses that to measure with. It is so light he can straighten it right out, and it is a good deal handier than a chain. It comes handy too, when he is setting his 'rockbounds.'"

"What are they?"

"Oh that is the way he fixes the corners. When he sets a corner that he is satisfied with, he sets out four pins quite a little way from the corner, so that when the wire is drawn straight each way between the pins it will cross exactly at the center. Then he digs a big hole from four to six feet deep, and gets the biggest stone he can find and puts into it. I have got one at one of my corners that is as big as a hogshead. It took three yoke of oxen to haul it in a stone-boat to the corner. When he gets the stone into the hole he fills in all solid around it and then drills a hole into it six inches deep and big enough to set his Jacob's staff in. That is what he calls 'rock-bounds.'"

"Has he put in many such?"

Quite a good many. He would have put in a good many more, but he never will put in a rock-bound unless he knows the corner is exactly right, and besides a good many folks don't want to bother with him, or to haul the stones for the corner. Of course he can't haul them himself, and if he cannot get the interested parties to haul them, he generally makes some private mark so he can tell where the corner is and lets the corner go without anything."

Soon after this conversation, some one set fire to his cabin, one cold night in the winter, just for the fun of seeing what "Old Randolph" would do. The result was that the cabin with all his notes and other contents were destroyed, and “Old Randolph" narrowly escaped with his life. After that, he laid out for a time in the woods, as I was told, until his feet were so badly frozen that he could not take care of himself, and others had to care for him. He was provided for, I knew not how, until he could get around again, when the supervisor of the town where he made it his home "put up a job on him" to get him into the poor-house. I think this was in the winter of 1869 and 70. A resolution was passed by the Board of Supervisors appointing Randolph Nutting County Civil Engineer, for the purpose of planting "rock-bounds" around the county farm. He was to receive ten shillings a day for his services,

while actually at work, and was to be boarded at the county house for ten shillings a week till the work was done. He was to have whatever assistance he required from the inmates of the county house in making the surveys. I was at the time serving my second term as County Surveyor of Kalamazoo county, and had my office at Galesburg, near which village the county farm is situated. I had never met "Old Randolph," but was posted by the supervisors as to what was being done.

One cold, blustery day in January, I sat in my office writing up my records, beside a warm and crackling fire. Outside the snow was falling thick and fast, whirling around corners and piling up in great heaps across the streets. Suddenly my office door opened and a gust of flying snowflakes burst into the room, followed by what at first sight might have been taken for Santa Claus himself. When the door was shut, and the snow-flakes melted, I saw before me a man apparently between 45 and 50 years of age, about 5 feet, 6 inches in hight, very strongly built, as if possessing great physical power. He was meanly clad in a ragged coat, pants, and shirt without a vest. Coat and pants were in tatters; the pants were without suspenders and held up by a cord around the waist. The coat was short of buttons, and was held together by a straw rope bound around him. He had no boots. His feet were wound about with rags, and over them he wore a heavy pair of woolen stockings, into which the bottoms of the trousers legs were tucked. He handed me a paper and made known the business which brought him. The paper was signed by the chairman of the Board of Supervisors and by the County Clerk, and set forth over the great seal of the county that the bearer, Randolph Nutting, had been duly appointed County Civil Engineer to place "rock-bounds" about the county farm. He came to me for field notes and information relative to corners in that vicinity. I gave him such information as I had, and allowed him free access to the field notes to copy whatever he desired. When he had got what he wanted, he drew his chair up beside the fire, enjoying the cosy warmth, and entered into conversation. I remember now but little that he said, and only carry a vivid impression that much of it showed evidence of deep thought, and careful though not extensive reading. There was much of originality and power mingled with wild wanderings, that showed an unbalanced mind. He was certainly a better land surveyor than I was, or anyone else that I knew. He was much impressed with the idea of having been appointed County