Wichita eagle., 1889-06-08
Carelessness and Incompetency
Shown Forth in Every Feature
Of Its Building.
Only the Excellence Of the Surrounding
Earth Made It Possible to
Stand So Long
The Day at the City Of Horror -Contribu-
lions and Their Expenditure-Colonel
Kelton Appointed as Adjutant
General Of the Army
State BreVitieS

JoHNSTowN, Pa, June 7-Mr. a. NJ.
Wellington, with Z. 2. Burt, associated
editor of the Engineering News, Of New
York, have just completed an examination
of the dam which caused the great dis
aster here. MIR. Wellington states that
the dam was in every respect OF very in
ferior construction and Of kind wholly
unwarranted by good engineering prac-
toes of thirty years ago. Both the origi-
nal and reconstructed dams were of earth
only with no heart wall, but only rip
raped on the slope. The original dam,
watered LAYERS, which still show dis
The new layers greatly added to
its stability, but 1t was to all appearance
simply dumped in like an ordinary rail-
road fill, or If rammed shows no evidence
of great effect from it. Much Of the old
part is Standing intact, while adjaosnt
parts OF the new work are wholly carried
off. There was no central wall of puddle
or masonry either In the new or old dam.
1t has been the invarfable practice Of
engineers for thirty or forty years to use
one or the other in building high dams Of
earth. 1t is doubtful if there is a single
other dam or reservoir in any other part
of the United States Of over fifty feet high,
which lacks this central wall. The recon-
lstguctad dam also bears the mark
of great ignorance or careless OF hay
ing been made nearly two feet lower
in the middle than at the ends, 1t should
have been crowned In the middle which
would have concentrated the overflow II it
should occur at the ends, instead OF in the
center. Had the break began at the ends
the cut of the water would have been so
gradually that little or no harm might
have resulted. Had the dam been at once
at the ends,when the water began running
over the center, the sudden break OF the
dam wouids have been ct least greatly
diminished possibly prolonged so that
little harm would have resulted. The
CREST of the old dam had nop been raised
in the reconstruction in 1881.
The old overflow chanuel through the
rock still remains, but owing to the sag of
the crest In ihe middle of the dam only
fiyeand half feet of water in it instead
of seven feet was necessary TO run water
over the crest, and the rock spillway, mar
row at best, had been further contracted
by a close grating to prevent the escape of
fish, capped by good-slzed timber and in
come slight degree also by trestle foot
bridge.
The original discharge pipes at the foot
of the dam had been permanently closed
when reconstructed, and this, while a
minor matter compared to the Others men
toned, further reduced the possible rate
of maximum discharge.
Tho net effect of all these differences of
condition was that the dam as it stood
was not much safer against excessive
floods, apart from its inferior construction,
than the original dam weuld have been
with crest only three and a half to four
feet high above the bottom of the rock
spillway, instead of seven feet. 1t is i'm
possible to say if the riprapping of the new
part OF the dam was as good as the old or
not; since il has been carried away.
A large amount of the old rip
rapping and slope wall still re-
mains intact and is of excellent quality.
1t does not appear that there WAS any
great amount of leakage through the dam
before it broke Destruction came from
water flowing over the top.
Mr.. Wellington said that no engineer of
known and good standing could possibly
have been engaged on it, since in the par
elementary and universally understood re-
quirements of good practice. He did not
believe that any other dam Of equal
height had ever been constructed in this
country, wholly Of earth, without some
kind of special protection against leak
age or abrasion by water III the center of
the dam.
The estimates of the original dam indi-
Gates that it was made about half earth
and half rock, but If so there was little
evidence of it in the broken dam. The re-
propping was mereiya skin on each face,
with more or less loose spauls mixed with
the earth. The dam was seventy-two feet
above the water, two to one inside slope,
one and half to one outside slope, twenty
feet wide on top. Rock throughout was
one foot below the surface. The earth
was pretty good material for such a dam if
it was to be built at all. being of clay
nature making good pm de. To this the
fact of its standing intact since 1881 must
be ascribed, as no engineer of standing
would have tried to So construct it. The
fact that the dam was reconstructed one
after over twenty years abandonment,
made it especially hard on the older part
of the dam to withstand the pressure of
the water.
Mr.. Wellington left for Pittsburg this
evening