WHAT GOES INTO A DAM?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 16.

WHAT GOES INTO A DAM?

[From “The Greatest of Power Dams,” in Leslie’s Monthly for February.]

The ordinary layman who sees the results of such labor as the dam across the Hudson River at Glens Falls, can not grasp the details with any comprehension. To say that 150,000 barrels of cement were used in making the concrete in which the huge blocks of granite were laid; to state that 400,000 tons of this same granite were built into the wall; that 30,000 trees were cut for the woodwork; that 1,500 men labored for three years to complete this narrow barrier stretching across the river, represents only a series of ungraspable ideas.

The cable ways used to transport buckets of cement and blocks of stone were the largest in the world, the biggest 2,400 feet in length. It needs 11,400 feet, or fully two miles of wire, to run this gigantic, aerial road.

The finished dam—it will probably be completed early next spring—will be 1,400 feet long, exclusive of the 400-foot wall of the canal built to conduct the water to the turbine wheels. The greatest height will be 154 feet, with a width along the top of seventeen feet. There are one or two such constructions slightly larger in size, but none that bar so mighty and powerful a river. The power developed will be 50,000 horse power at times.