Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-06-08
An Engineers Report Upon the Con-
StruCtiOn Of COnemaugh Dam.
RELIEF FUND STILL GROWING.
Fears That Disease WIZ T.. i'ropagated
"A living Body Found Under
Wrecf.
Especial DISPATCHES TO ria aasoaD-UNlov.l
pAm BADLY coN,rKl crsE,.
What an Engineer Says About the Cone
mauGh Dam

JoHEsToWN, June 1th--A. NJ Yelling
ton with Z. p. Burt. associate editor Of the
Engineering Ne,US of New YORK, have cOrU-
pleted an examnaIIoa of the aam which
caused the great djsas--r. Wellington
states that the dam was in every respect of
very inferior construction and OF kind
wholly unwarranted by ;h- good engineer
ing practices of thirty years ago Both The
original and reconstruct dams were of
earth only, with no heart wsh hut only
np-rapped on the 81 pes he original
dam, however, was made in -ammeG and
watered layers which sllL sLoT distinctly
in the wrel ked dam.
SIMPLY DUMPED n
The new end merely added to its sta
bility, bu. il was to all appearances simply
dumped n Ike an ordinary railway ill. or
If rammed, shows no evidence Of any good
effect from If. Much Of tee cid part is
standing intact, while the adjacent parts of
the new work are wholly carried off There
was no central wall of puddle or masonry
either in the new or Old Gam. II has been
the inVariaOle praCuce OF engineers for
thirty or forty years to use one 3r the other
II building high dams OF earth. The recon-
structed dam also bears
MARKS OF GREAT cAEELEssYEss
In having been made two feet lower in the
middle than at the ends. Il should rather
have crowned in the middle. which would
have concentrated the overflow Il II should
occur, at the ends ins ESQ Of IN the center.
Had the break begun at The ends. tie cut
Of the water would nave been so gradual
that little or no harm might have resulted
Had the dam been at once cut at the ends
when the water began running over the
center, the sudden breaking OF the dam
would have been at least greatly dluin-
iCh nf nia w hot Ia
harm would have resulted.
The crest of the old dam had not been
raised in the reconstruction Of 1851. The
old over1ow-channel through the rock still
remains, but owing
TO THE SAG OF THE CREST
In the middle of the dam only five and g
half feet of water in it. instead Of seven
feet, were necessary to run water over TIE
crest, and the rock spill. Tay, narrow at
best, had been further contracted by a close
grating to prevent the escape of fish. capped
By good-sized timber aud IN some slight
degree also by a trestle OF foot bridge
The original discharge pipes at the foot of
the dam had been permanently closed
when it was reconstructed, and this,
while minor matter compared 10 others
mentioned, further reduced the possible
rate of che maximum discharge. The net
effect of all these differences of the condi-
ton was that the dam as It stood was not
much safer against excessive foods apart
from
ITS INFERIOR CoNsTCCTION
Than the original dam would have been
with its crest only three and one-half to
four feet higher above the bottom of the
rock spill-Way, instead of seven feet. a
large amount of the old riprapping and
slope wall still remains intact and IS OF ex-
cellent quality. 1t does not appear there
was any great amount of leakage through
the dam before it broke. The destruction
came from the water flowing over the top.
Wellington said that no engineer of
known and good standing for such work
could possibly have been engaged on it,
since in the particulars mentioned it vio-
lated the most elementary and universally
understood requirements Of good practice
HALF EARTH AND HALF ROCK.
The estimates of the original dam indi-
cate that it was made of about half earth
and half rock, but, if So there was little
evidence of it in the broken dam. The
ripIapping was merely skin on each face
with more or less loose planks mixed with
the earth.
The dam was seventy.two feet above the
water, two TO one inside the slope. one and
one-half to one on the outside slope, and
twenty feet wide on the top. The rock
throughout was about one foot below the
surface.
The earth was of pretty good material
for such dam, if il was 20 be built at al l.
being of clayey nature, making a good
puddle. To this the fact OF its standing
intact since 1881 must be ascribed, as no
engineer of any standing would ever have
tried to so construct it. The fact that the
dam was a reconstructed one after
over twenty years of abandonment
made it especially hard on the
older part of the dam to withstand the
rressr1ra cf the water