The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1874-07-17
Ths Thrse Great Dam Oatastronhss.

Within twenty years three great acci-
dents, at least, have occurred through
the giving away of reservoir dams.
First, there was the dam at Holmfirth,
Yorkshire, England. This caused even
a greater loss of life than the Massachu-
sets affair. The water ran across a
populous portion of the town, twenty
feet deep, drowning or burying the peo-
pie in the ruins of their cottages. The
destruction of property was great, but
not in proportion to the loss of life. Ten
years after came the Sheffield eatastro-
phe, which Charles Reade, the local
item novelist, so eloquently describes IN
his "Put Yourself in His Place" An.
other decade passes, and we have tnird
of these horrible catastrophes. rms
time it is not in Yorkshire nor IN Eng
land, but in Massachusetts,. The loss of
life is only 145, and Of property only
/ s., 1000 by the latest estimates. IL Is
! not worse, nor so bad, as what has hap
pened before in either of these respects,
/ but there is this difference-there is
more culpability in the engineer. After
the Holmfirth affair, the Sheffield engl-
neer had no right to take one hours
risk. When the embankment showed
the first small crack, only perceptible to
/ the close observer, the sluice gates
should have been opened. When the
fissure showed the first signs of en-
! largement, his waste weir should have
been Immediately blown up with gun
powder, so as to relieve the dam rapidly.
! At Sheffield, though the crack had been
discovered seven hours, it was not until
| half an hour before the dam burst away
! like a cloud of smoke, that the sluice-
gates were opened. The engineer had
reluctantly consented to blow up his
waste weir when the crack had so
widened that a workman put his fingers
into it. But though the means were at
hand, before the fuse fired the powder
| that is in less than five minutes-the
dam was gone. The water swept q
broad track a quarter of mile to Shef-
field, and destroyed all the great build
ings and machinery along the bankgoi
the Sheaf, and hundreds lost their lives
BY the accounts it does not appear
that the affair in. Massachusetts, was SC
sudden as in either of the other cases
The dam was known to be imperfect
and no engineer has right to hesitate
one moment between wasting water and
taking life. If this man was fit for his
position, he knew not only what haC
/, happened at Holmfirth and Sheffield
and why it happened-he knew thai
men of his profession, taking chances
had killed. MANNED and ruined severa
. hundreds in those two instances, de
stroying millions of dollars of property
He ought to be held accountable, and j
found guilty of neglect, he ought to b'
imprisoned for life, as warning to othe
engineers. For the benefit of those whC
= live OH the track which the water from
broken dams may take, we may her
state that the best English engineers, il
the light of what has happened befor
this last, have laid down the rule tina
? no earthen dam is secure that has TO re
5 tain water more than siXty-five feet per
! pendicular above the natural surface
: That is the limit OF what earth worl
! will stand with safety. 1t might holC
, one hundred feet for years, bnt it nigh
: give way the next wsek.-San Ffd1lcisc'
r Post.