The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-04-03
TERRIBLE FowEa OF WATER.
Some Powerful Yarns Told by Emf
nent Scientists Familiar With Water.
From the Netg York Sun.

oOHe FoWerIul 1arnS ToId Oy Emil
nent Scientists Familiar With Water.
F'om the Neio York Sun.
About two months ago there was dinner
party at Gen. Schofield's house In WASH
ington. Among the guests were President
Harrison, Chief Justice Fuller, thu late
Secretary Window, Speaker Reed, Senator
Sherman and Senator Stanford, and Justice
Stephen j. Field.
During the dinner the conversation
turned upon mining operations in Cali
fornia, and Judge Field, whose knowledge
of all matters relating to the Pacific coast
is as extensive as his powers of narrative
are entertaining, astonished the distin-
guished company by some of his assertions
in regard to the force of the Jets of water
employed in hydraulic mining. He de-
scribed the wonderful manner in which the
streams from the hose cut to pieces
and tore down the hills that hold
be precious metal. Judge Field cited
Hon. James G. Fair as his 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 powders weighing thousand
pounds; and that 1t would be no more pos
sible to cut through such stream with a
crowbar or an axe, where it issued from the
nozzle, than to sever eight inches of solid
iron with a penknife.
AS Judge Field afterward informed Sen
ator Fair. in letter asking for expert tes-
timony about the power of water applied By
hydraulic machinery, these assertions were
received by some Of Gen. Schofleld's guests
with smiles of polite incredulity. 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 gravely alleged by
ination like the chief Justices or strain the
faith of SO profound a believer in dynamics
as the Hon. Thomas B. Reed.
In consequence of this incident, and for
the vindication of his own reputation for
veracity, Judge Field has collected from
several Of the highest authorities on practi-
cal hydraulics evidence and opinions that
are of great interest.
Ex-senator Fair tells Justice Field that
at the Spring Valley gold mine in Cherokee,
California, the water used in the hydraulic
mining operations was brought in pipes
and bitches from distance of nearly one
hundred miles, and that tho volume of water
used on every working day in that mine
amounted to three times the number of gal
Ions consumed daily by the entire city of
San Francisco
Louis Glass, for sixteen years the super>
inUendent Of the Spring Valley mine, as
sures Justice Field that he has seen an
S-inch stream, under 81 feet of vertical
pressure, move in sluggish way two-ton
bowlder at distance of twenty feet from
the nozzle; and that the same stream strik-
ing rock of 500 pounds would throw it as
a man would throw q twenty pound weight.
"No man that ever lived, adds Louis
Glass, could strike bar through one Of
these streams within twenty feet Of dis
charge; and human being struck by such
a stream would be killed-pounded into a
shapeless mas" FNs
Augustus J. Bowie of San Francisco, the
author of a standard book on hydraulic
mining, estimates that the stream from a
six-inch nozzle, under $50 feet vertical pres
sure, delivers blow of 58S, 735 foot pounds
every second, equivalent to 1,070 horse
power. ut Ia absolutely impossible" says
MIR. Bowie, ito cut such stream with an
axe, or to make an impression on it with
any other implement Mr.. Bowie adds
that although never to his knowledge has a
man been struck by such a stream as
il comes from the pipe, several accidents
have occurred where miners were killed by
very much smaller streams at distances Of
150 or 200 fest from the nozzle.
After an elaborate series of computations
Prof. Samuel B. Christy of the University
of California, an eminent authority on min
ing and metallurgy, reports TO Justice Field
that if nozzle of from six to nine inches
diameter were specially arranged to throw
q stream vertically upward against spheri-
cal bowlder of quartz weighing | ,000 pounds,
the vertical head being anyw here from 1U0 to
500 feet, the bowlder would be forced I'D
until the diminished velocity Of the stream
established an equilibrium Of pressures.
There would he a point at which
"a
would exactly balance the gravity pressure
Of the boulder, holding it, the half-ton
rock. there suspended. In PRACTICE, of
course, the bowlder could not be balanced
accurately upon the axis Of the stream, but
would fall to one side or the other. But if
a large conical basket of iron bars were ar
ranged about the nozzle 30 as to catch the
boulder whenever it should be detected
from the stream and return it TO the nozzle,
the 1000 pounds Of quartz would be kept In
play like ball in fountain. AS to cutting
these streams, Prof. Christy says that be has
often tried TO drive a crowbar into one of
them. The stream felt as solid as 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 retain it in the grasp. An ak
swung by the most powerful man alive
could not penetrate the stream, yet 1t
might be cut by the finger Of a child if the
child were seated on a railway train moving
parallel with the stream in the same direc-
ton and with the same velocity. That
velocity would be considerably more than a
mile minute.
Justice Bradley Of the supreme court has
also tried his intellect upon the mathematics
Of the problem submitted by Judge Field.
He delivered this opinion: 81 can well be
lava all Won can sav in regard 70 the tre-
nendous force Of streams issuing from the
oipes Of the miners under a large head Of
water. OF course they would produce in
slant death If directed against a man stand-
ing near, and would probably cut his body
in tYo.n