Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1891-06-05
POWER OF WATER.
TREMENDOUS FORCE OF JETS IN
HYDRAULIC MINING.
Streams From Hose That Cut to
NPieces sand Tear Down Hills-Toss.
ing Huge Bowldcrs as If
They Were Rubber Balls.

tary Window, Speaker Reed, Senator
Sherman and Senator Stanford and JUS
tice Stephen j. Field.
During the dinner tho conversation
turned upon mining operations in Cali
fornia, and Judge Field, whose knowl-
edge of all matters relating to the Pacific
Coast is us extensive rs his powers of mar
rativc are entertaining, astonished the
distinguished company by some Of his
assertions i'll regard to the force of the
jets OF water employed in hydraulic min
ing. He described the wonderful man
ner in which the streams from the hose
cut to pieces and tear down the hills that
hold the precious metal. Judge Field
cited James G. Fair as his authority for
the statement that under vertical pres
sure of one or two hundred feet the force
OF the stream is sometimes so great us to
hurl away or hold powders weighing q
thousand pounds, and that it would be
no more possible to cut through such q
stream with crowbar or an az, where it
issued from the nozzle than to sever eight
inches of solid iron with n penknifc..
AS Judge Field afterward informed
Senator Fair, i'll letter asking for expert
testimony about the power of water an
Piled by hydraulic machinery, these as
sertions were received by some of Gen
eral Schofcld's guests with smiles of DO.
lite incrcdulity. The eminent jurist felt
THAT his position, for the moment, was
somewhat like that of the Englishman
who informed the King of Siam that in
England water often became SO hard that
people could walk on it. 1t is not at all
surprising that the facts gravcly alleged
by Justice Field should stagger ones i'm
agination.
In consequence Of this incident, and
for the vindication of his own reputation
Tor veracity, Judge Field has collected
from several of the highest authorities
ON practical hydraulics evidence and
opinions that are of great interest. En-
Senator Fair tells Justice Field that ut
the Spring Valley gold mine in Chero-
kee, CAL, the water used in thehylraulic
mining operations was brought in pipes
and bitches from distance of nearly
one hundred miles, and that the volume
of water used on every working day in
that mine amounted to three. times the
number Of gallons consumed daily by the
entire city of San Francisco.
Louis Glass, for sixteen years the Su-
pcrintendcnt of the Spring Valley mine,
assures Justice Field that he has seen an
ciSht-inch stream, under 81 feet of
vertical pressure, move in n sluggish wav
n two-ton bowlder ut distance of twenty
feet from the nozzle; and that the same
stream striking II rock OF 500 pounds
would throw it as n man would throw a
twenty pound weight. "No man that
ever lived" adds Louis Glass, "could
strike bar through one of these streams
within twenty feet of discharge, and
human being struck by such stream
would be killed-poundcd into shape
less mass"
Augustus j.. Bowie, of San Francisco,
the author of standard book on nv
drnulic mining, estimates that the stream
from n six-inch nozzle, under $50 feet
vertical pressure, delivers blow of
5SS, T35 foot pounds every second,
equivalent to 1910 horse power. at is
absolutely impossible" says Mr.. Bowie,
''to cut such stream with an AK or to
make IN impression ON it with any other
implement" Mr.. Bowie adds that al
though never to his knowledge has
man been struck by such stream rs it
comes from the pipe several accidents
have occurred where miners were killed
by very much smaller streams ut dis
tances Of $50 or 200 feet from the noz.
zle.
After an elaborate series of computa-
tions Professor Samuel d. Christy, of the
University of California, an eminent au.
thority on mining and metallurgy, re.
ports to Justice Field that if u nozzle OF
from six to nine inches diameter were
specially arranged to throw Il stream YER
tically upward against spherical
oowlder of quartz weighing 1000 pounds
the vertical head being anywhere from
100 to 500 feet, the bowlder would be
forced up until the diminished velocity
of the stream established IN equilibrium
OF prcssurcs. There would be a point
Mt which the upward pressure of the
stream would exactly balance the gravity
pressure of the bowlder, holding it, the
hal!-ton rock, there suspended. In
practice, of course, the bowldcr could
not be balanced accurately upon the axis
Of the stream, but would fall to one
side or the other. But if al
large conical basket of iron
bars were arranged about the nozzle SO
as to catch the bowidcr whenever it
should be detected from the stream and
return it to the nozzle, 1000 pounds of
quartz would be kept in play like a ball
in fountain. AS to cutting these
streams, Professor Christy says that he
has often tried to drive q crowbar into
one of them. The stream felt as solid rs
a bar of iron, and, although he could feel
the point of the crowbar enter the water
for perhaps half an inch, the bar was
thrown forward with such force that it
was almost impossible to retaia it in the
grasp. An nx swung by the most pow
erful man alive could not penetrate the
stream; yet it might be cut by the finger
OF n child if the child were seated on
railway train moving parallel with the
stream i'll the same direction and with
the same velocity. That velocity would
be considerably more than mile min