The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-04-03
Tho Terrible Power OF Water I'm Motion.
New York Sun

house in Washington. Among the
guests were President Harrison, CHIEF
Justice Fuller, the late Secretary Win.
dom, Speaker Reed, Senator Sherman,
and Senator Stanford, and Mr.. Justice
Stephen J. Field.
During the dinner the conversation
turned upon mining operations in Cali
fornia. and Judge Field. whose knowl-
| edge OF all matters relating to the
| Pacific coast is as extensive as his pow
ers of narrative are entertaining, aston
ished the distinguished company by
some of his assertions in regard to the
force of the jets of water employed in
hydaulic mining. He described the
wonderful manner in which the streams
from the hose cut to pieces and tear
down the hills that hold the precious
metal. Judge Field cited the Hon. Jas.
G. Fair as authority for the statement
that under vertical pressure OF one or
Two hundred feet the force of the
stream Is sometimes so great as to hurl
away or hold boulders weighing a
thousand pounds: and that il would be
no more possible TO cut through such a
stream with a Crowbar or an ak, where
II issued from nozzle, than to sever
eight inches of solid iron with pen
knife.
As Judge Field afterward informed
Senator Fair. in a letter asking for ex-
pert testimony about the power of water
applied by hydraulic machinery. these
assertions were received by some of
General SchOfield's guests with smiles
of polite incredulity. The eminent
jurist felt that his position. for the mo-
ment, was somewhat like that of the
Englishman who informed the King OF
Siam that in England water often be-
came so hard that people could walk on
Ii. 1t is not at all surprising that the
facts gravely alleged by Justice Field
should stagger even an imagination
like the chief Justices, or strain the
faith OF so pro Ound a believer in dy-
namicS as the Hon. Thomas B. Reed.
In consequence of this incident, and
for the vindicatiOn Of his own reputa-
ton for veracity, Judge Field has col
lected from several of the highest all
thorities on practical hydraulics evil
dence and opinions that are of great in
terest.
Ex-senator Fair tells Justice Field
that at the Spring Valley gold mine in
Cherokee. Calf. the water used in the
hydraulic mining operations was
brought in pipes and bitches from a
distance of nearly 100 miles. and that
the volume of water used on every
working day in that mine amounted to
three times the number of gallons con-
sumed daily by the entire city of San
Francisco.
Mr.. Louis Glass. for sixteen years the
superintendent of the Spring Valley
mine, assures Justice Field that he has
seen an eight-inch stream, under 81
feet of verticle pressure, move in
sluggish way two-tOn boulder at a
distance of twenty feet from the nozzle:
and that the same stream striking a
rock of 800 hundred pounds would
throw it as a man would throw twen-
ty-pound weight. No man that ever
lived, adds Mr.. Louis Glass, could
strike bar through one of these
streams within twenty feet of discharge
and a human being struck by such a
stream would be killed-pounded into a
shapelesS mass"
Mr.. Augustus ]. Bowie of San Fran
cisco, the author of standard book on
hydraulic mining. estimates that the
stream from siX-inch nozzle, under
40 feet vertical pressure, delivers a
blow of SIS, 49, loot pounds every second
equivalent to LOO horse power. 1T
is absolutely impossible says Mr.. |
axe. or to make an impression on it |
with any other implement" Mr.. Bowie |
adds that. although never to his knowl- |
Odge has man been struck by such a
stream as it comes from the pipe, sew
aral accidents have occurred where |
miners were killed bv very much small |
er streams at distances of $50 or 200 feet !
from the nozzle.
After an elaborate series of computa- |
tons, Professor Samuel B. Christy of |
the university of California. an emf |
nent authority on mining and metal
lurgy, reports to Justice Field that if a |
nozzle Of from six TO nine inches diam |
eter were specially arranged to throw a |
stream vertically upward against a |
spherical boulder of quartz weighing l.
300 pounds. the vertical head being any |
where from 100 TO 500 feet. the boulder |
would be forced up until the dimin- |
shed velocity of the stream eStabi ished |
IN equilibrium of pressures. There
would be point at which the upward |
pressure of the stream would exactly |
balance the gravity pressure of the !
boulder. holding it, the half-ton rock, |
here suspended. In practice. ofcourse, |
The boulder could not be balanced accur- |
ately upon the axis of the stream. but |
would fall TO one side or the other. But |
# a large cOnical basket OF iron bars |
we're arranged about the nozzle so as TO |
,atch the boulder whenever it should |
De DETECTED from the stream and return
L to the nozzle. the LOCO pounds |
If quartz would be kept in |
play like a ball in a fountain. As to
cutting these streams. Professor Chris
Y says that he has often tried to drive
/ crowbar into one of them. The
stream felt as solid as bar OF iron. and.
he could feel the point of the
'rOwbar enter the water for perhaps
lalf an inch the bar was thrown for
ward with such force that it was almost
to retain it in the grasp.
An AK swung by the most powerful man
.ould not penetrate the stream: yet it
night he cut by the finger of a child, if
he child were seated on railway train
moving parallel with the stream in the
anne direction and with the same We
ocity. That velocity would be consid-
rably more than mile a minute.
Justice Bradley of the supreme court
las also tried his intellect upon the
of the problem submitted
v Judge Field. He delivers this opin-
on: Il can well believe all you say
nth regard to the tremendous force of
issuing from the pipes of the
mines under large head of water. OF
curse they would produce instant
cath Il directed against a man stand
ne near. and would probably cut his
OdV in two