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Renders #1

Let's start with an overview over the construction area:

... and then have some closer looks at the excavation work:

The last pic shows a steam engine (locomobile) driving a generator for electricity.

Next step was building the basements for the main piles at the corners of each pillar. This seemed to be really hard work - at least for the Northern and Western pillar. The ground was all wet, and they had to deal with underground water, so they used some caissons for the work. The caissons had been filled with comprimed air to keep the water outside, and the workers had to do their job in a permanent atmosphere of overpressure.
Therefor a second locomobile drives a compressor.
Might be interesting to know that they had to dig about 7,5 meters deep to reach some natural grown rock.

Compared to that the basement work for the Southern/Eastern pillars was almost easy. No problems with underground water, and after digging about 2 meters deep they reached solid ground:

Seemed to be funny times: they had electricity (Paris' street illumination switched to electricity in 1878 already) and comprimed air (1863: first submarine in the French Navy), on the other hand digging was done by manual power. Even cranes and pulleys were driven manually, and the small lorries were pulled by horses.

Basement work going on and on:

Let's have a look ath the Southern pillar's substructure: the machine room for the elevator.
At the moment it's all empty, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna fill it with some machinery - depends on me being able to understand Mr. Eiffels really complex drawings ;-)