The late A. J. Cassatt, then a Director of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and previous thereto as General Manager and Vice-President (and later as President) of that company, was deeply interested in obtaining an entrance into New York City, but was not satisfied with the proposed rapid transit passenger tunnels which required the termination of the Pennsylvania Railroad trains at its Jersey City Station. Therefore, upon his request, in September of the same year, another study and report was made by Joseph T. Richards, M. Am. Soc. C. E., then Engineer of Maintenance of Way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, on a route beginning in New York City at 38th Street and Park Avenue on the high ground of Murray Hill, thence crossing the East River on a bridge, and passing around Brooklyn to Bay Ridge, thence under the Lower Bay or Narrows to Staten Island and across to the mainland, reaching the New York Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at some point between Rahway and Metuchen. Mr. Cassatt also had in mind at that time a connection with the New England Railroad, then independent, but now part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad system, by means of the Long Island Railroad, and a tunnel under the East River, which in later years, as the result of further consideration of the situation, has been covered by the proposed New York Connecting Railroad with a bridge across the East River and over Ward's and Randall's Islands. As a result of these investigations, the late George D. Roberts, who was then President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, authorized an expenditure of about $25,000 for soundings to determine the nature of the strata for tunneling under water. These soundings were carefully made by Mr. Richards with a diamond drill, bringing up the actual core of all rock found in crossing the waters of New York Bay from the west to the east side and extending from the Narrows to the Jersey City Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. After these investigations had been made, early in 1892, Mr. Roberts expressed himself as being favorable to the undertaking, with the definite limitation that the tunnels must be for small cars doing local suburban business, and for the transfer of Pennsylvania Railroad passengers to and from New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, and not in any way to be tunnels for standard steam equipment, the expense for terminals and the prohibited use of coal for fuel in such tunnels not warranting any broader consideration. Under such instructions, the interests of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for effecting a physical entrance into New York City in that year were turned over to Samuel Rea, M. Am. Soc. C. E., then Assistant to the President of that Company, who has been identified with the investigations, and the progress and construction of this work since that time, Mr. Cassatt also working in conjunction with him on the plans then and since considered by the Pennsylvania Railroad Management.