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Civil Engineering in the Old Days

When my father was a boy, he played in the tunnels that were being built for some of the New York City subways. When the construction crews finished laying a long conduit of iron pipe, they needed to run cable through the conduit. How do you think they did it?



First they let a mouse loose in the conduit. Then they let a cat in—with twine tied to its leg. The cat went after the mouse, which ran like hell for the far end. When the cat brought the twine to the far end, the job was half done.



At the near end of the conduit, they tied the twine to rope and pulled the twine and the rope all the way through from the far end. Then they tied the rope to the heavy cable and pulled the cable through. The trick was how much of a head start to give the mouse. Tags: al

