San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-03-25
SANTIAGO DI-BRAZOS.
Pushing For Deep Water at the
Mouth of the Brazos--Some
Notes Anent the Same.

4
The company that is working fol
deep water at the mouth OF the
Brazos :is pushing construction un'
der resident Engineer G. Y. Wisner
for all that is in it. There are now
about 400 hands at work and the
scene presented during work hours is
one of busy activity. The company
| is doing good constructive work
using only the best material under
the careful supervision of the res iden t
| engineer acting under orders of f. L..
Corthell, the eminent engineer who
directed Eads' work at the mouth of
the Mississippi. Taught by expert
ence that the sand stone in use in
the Galveston cons tructions cannot
long resist the action of sea water and
marine insects the Brazos company
brings its stone from the granite hills
of far away New England. They
find this much cheaper than to trans
port Texas granite by rail. The New
England granite costs them $500 per
cubic yard laid down at the works
while the Texas granite would cost
$3.50 laid down at Houston. They
might secure Washington county
sandstone, but their engineer has re-
fused it as utterly useless. Thirty
nine carloads of this stone recently
laid down by the jetty contractors at
Galveston has been rejected by the
government engineers there, and it is
said that already considerable of the
Galveston material is crumbling
under the combined action of the salt
water and the bOrers.
The BraZOs construction company
are very sanguine of results, and are
promised by their engineer not less
than twenty feet Of water by January
/, 1890. The soundings show a very
tavOra BILE condition of coast and in
sure bottom for the successful prose-
cuLion of their work. The bar there is
not formed by the deposit of silt from
the outflow of the river, but is formed
from the deposit of the gulf sands
during storms when the gulf waters,
driven in towards the mouth of the
river, meet the outgoing river current
and held in state of quiesCence sink
to the bottom. An analysis of the
sand just outside the mouth of the
river shows no silt, and at thirty feet
depth of water, at which a hard blue
clay is reached, there is no deposit
whatever. All that is needed will he
to extend the jetties INTO a depth of
thirty feet of water, and securing will
clear the channel to depth of
from twenty-three to tWenty-seven
feet. This will call for jetties one mile
out from the mouth of the river.
These jetties built of ndestructible
granite are placed ! 900 feet apart and
within them the current will be of
sufficient rapidity to prevent the set
Ting of the disturbed sea sands. Out
side the jetties the precipitation will
ontinue, and so year by year the jet
ties will become bedded deeper and
strengthened by the natural action of
the waves and sands. AS no sand or
silt is deposited at a depth of thirty
feet, the action of the littOral current
does not enter into any consideration
of tho problem of deep water pOssibili-
ties, but this current is at right angles
to tho mouth of the jetties and
thus favorable to the carrying
away of any deposit were such deposit
made.
The current at the mouth of the
river has q velocity of about three
miles per hour and is sufficient to pre-
serve constant outflow against the
action Of the strongest tides. The
river banks are sufficiently indurated
n ri, mi,
once the higher land is reached
where there is no danger Of gulf over
flow both sides of the river present
every facility for the construction of
wharves and docks, and the building
OF great commercial city. The Brazos
company, largely composed of eastern
have made very little buster about
their work, but have gone quietly and
intelligently to work fully assured of
the feasibility of their Undertaking,
| and the certainty of their Sc
curing that great desideratum
for Texas, deep water upon her gulf
coast. Whatever effect the speedy Sc
curing of deep water at the mouth of
the Brazos may have upon the for
| tunes of Galveston, from which these
| jetties are only forty miles distant, it
matters not. 1t will neither add to
nor detract from the value and COM
mercal Importance of the work so
courageously undertaken by the
Rrazos company. To them will forever
belong the credit Of solving the vexeI
problem of deep water on the gu I
! coast Of Texas. In this work success
fully accomplished, they will ave
! bIiltt tor themselves a monument more