Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-12-29
A DAM PROJECT.

Hiram Cadwalader has written Il long
letter to the Mining and Scientific Press,
in which he gives his ideas of a plan for
enabling hydraulic mining to be prose
cuted on the Yuba river and its tributa-
ries. He would erect a series of dams
where solid bottom can be secured. The
chief dam he would have at a point on the
river where it is fanked by rocky cliffs.
Every forty feet in hight of the dam
would grade up about a mile When the
dam attains hight of $50 or 300 feet the
water would flow over a solid granite
ridge, and not over the dam. Such dam
would, he says, hold the tailings of about
thirty-two years. He would have the
State undertake the work, and proposes
that efforts be made to secure 81 600 1000
from Congress in aid of it. By tax on
the mines he would raise 81, 000,0 900 more.
He would then have a branch prison
located at the dam by the State that the
prisoners might be employed to do the
work. All ikis would take the mining
business ahead thirty-two years, when
there would be little or no hydraulic min
ing to be done ON the Yuba. Probably
not. Nor would there at the end of that
time be left any Sacramento, Yuba or
Feather rivers, and but little of the most
fertile portions of the Sacramento valley
while as for river towns and cities known
to this generation, they would be very
much scarcer than the proverbial hens
teeth. All such schemes are chimerical,
not to say foolish. Mr.. Cadwalader does
the mining region injury by encouraging
- the hope that any such plans are at all
possible. In the first place, the State will
never consent to enter upon any such
work, whatever Congress might be induced
to do. In the next place, the dams would
not prevent the descent of the fine sedi-
ment that thus far down on the Sacra-
mento river has done about all the damage
OF which We complain. In the third
place, the outgo for the works would not
be justified by the reward that would
accrue to the public. In the last place
no such scheme can obtain State consent
TO ITS Inauguration without the approva lof
the peopleof the valley, and that will never
be given, The Cadwalader plan is as wildly
improbable as the coniurings of dream
induced by too hearty Christmas dinner
If there is to be expended any money by
the State or the Nation in the matter of
preventing the descent of the debris and
sediment from hydraulic mining, it will he
and should be expended in preventing the
coming down upon the valley of the
almost Unreasonable quantities of sand
and debris already in the lower reaches of
the Yuba, and which, with each flood sea-
son, must and do come nearer to the valley
lands; and must and do each year more
and more impair those two nayigable
streams, the Sacramento and the Feather.
Indeed, the Feathers mouth is already 50
clogged by this descent that il is scarcely
able TO discharge its waters at all in the
dry season. All the deposits to which we
refer are far below the mines. They con-
stituVe a menace to property holdings
along the Sacramento river, and therefore
must be retained where they are. And
the sooner this is done the easier will be
the task. This is the unanimous verdict of
engineering Judgment. and TALES with the
OPINION OF all who have given the matter
any considerable study. But this
is, we claim, properly the work |
of the Federal Government. By
its neglect the accumulations came
where they are. 1t is its duty 10
save the chief navigable stream and harbor
of the State from destruction, and it can
only do so by staying the descent of
debris already out of the mines and in the
upper streams. Such work we believe will