Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-06-09

system that skirts the banks Of the Sus-
Quehanna and Juniata rivers, and he
showed the effets Of wear and tear among
water and mud.
You know the Potomac behaved pretty
decently this spring, and, as had no work
to do down here. they drafted me into the
ranks to help out up in Pennsylvania. But
the Potomac at its worst does not enter in
to comparison with the Pennsylvania
rivers. The Potomac when on a tear brings
down brushwood and perhaps an occasional
bridge, but those rivers up In the keystone
state will carry on their angry bosoms all
the way from a hen coop filled with chick
ems to iron bridges and complete saw mill
outfits.
you know I made my debut In this
business in $780," continued the young
railroad engineer. land. OF course. missed
the great 1859 flood, but outside of Johns
town itself believe the damage done VIII
foot up equally as much as in the latter
year. Both the Susquehanna and Juniata
rivers have become quite compressed In
width at different places. owing to the de-
velopment of the many towns along their
banks, and in dry weather present the
most peaceful scenes imaginable But
when the heavy rains come it is simply
they will spread out. Old railroad men up
there tell me that parts of the road that
would be flooded. say. about every five years,
are now under water almost every spring
or fall. This is brought about. they claim.
through the dumping Of furnace refuse in to
the river. and in many places building
out immense piers to accommodate the
travel to the entrance of new bridges.
This is particularly noticeable up around
harrisburg. where road was under
three feet of water for many miles. This
slretch OF road was under water for the first
time in 1859. and since then is inundated
frequently. l believe the river at that polnt
has been contracted full half mile. and
or course, when you try TO confine a food
within narrow limits something has TO give
way, and I'm this case it is generallv tive
banks of our railroad.
breaking of Log Booms.
Another feature of Pennsylvania foods
which You people down here cannot COM
prehend Is the breaking Of log booms and
the great damage done by this sort of
hood debris. Just imagine, IL you can hun
dreds of millions of feet of logs coming
down stream in a solid mass at the rate
OF hfteen miles an hour. They are simply
irresistible. 1 have seen large saw nills
crushed together like a person could crush
small paper box in his hands Several of
our large granite piers, that one uo,,ld
think could stand everything but dynamite
have had large blocks of stone Knocked ONT
or them by these logs. and they shake the
bridges 50 that one could ha-dly keen ON
his feet. The custom of using publ,c
streams as common carriers and storage
basins for timber has its Inconvenience and
dangers. The raftsmen have always been
the enemy of other naviSators Their RATS
are an unstable obstacle to free navigation
and In spite Of extreme circumspection. re
frequent cause of collision and destruc-
ton. rms logging business in ordinary
times hurts no one, but when floods come
the escaped logs become a batte.ng ram
OF tremendous power and increase tenfold
the natural destructveness of the flood
water In fact. the percentage of destruc-
ton done by the logs Is about IS per cent
to IS by water.
Il went up into the district before the
flood began in anticipation Of the event
and took In the situation from point a
short distance below Wiiiiamsport, on the
West branch. and was an eyewitness of
the devastation caused by the uncontrolled
timber from the broken boom. 1t is a mys-
terry to me why the people in that locality
do not enter a strong protest against the
lumbermen of the upper SusQUehanna, as
they are below them on the stream and
have to foot the bills caused by the logs
breaking loose. The lumber interest of
the state Is very great one and II would
be folly to embarrass those engaged in it
by restrictions that would appreciably in
crease the first cost of the product But
so as not to harm his neighbor Is as ap-
plicable to lumbermen as others. Their
practice of loosely combining millions of
feet Of logs in a boom which is bound to
snap and set the logs free al every extra
ordinary rise of water entails periodic
heavy loss upon themselves, which II Is to
their interest to avoid If they can. Every
other river IT. terest is vitality concerned in
securing protection from this periodic as
sault Of logs, which crush nearly every
thing in their path.
Blame the Railroad Men.
"If a railroad man UP in that region
gives vent to his feelings in the matter he
is Immediately charged with being on the
lockout for new business for his road and
that he wants to haul the logs to their des-
tIIation at so much a foot. whereas the
river transports them free. They cannot
understand that the freight charges we
would derive from the transportation of the
logs would be a mere bagateile when put in
CT mparison with the loss they infiict upon
our road when once their property gets on
rampage. a spring flood in the rivers up
in Pennsylvania always finds those power
full streams loaded. The moving timber
pushed forward by the accumulated walters
behind is almost an irresistible engine of
destruction. the boom itself holds back
the waters for time. adding to the over
flow which makes the escaped current so
full OF terror. A river on the rampage is
bad enough in all sense without carrying
before 1t a solid rampant Of logs.
Il shall never forget the sight of the on
coming logs as I stood on a point below
Williamsport from which / could take in
the main channel of the stream. We had
been working hard all day loading down
cur bridge with freight cars and iron Of all
descriptions to prevent 1t being carried
away. The rapid current, surging, swish
ing and roaring, bore upon its angry crest
logs, huge timbers, piles. buildings, sec
tons Of bridges and property of every
description conceivable. An iron bridge at
the main street of the city, a huge structure
OF five spans, was the first to fall q prey.
Great piles of lumber battered it down with
as much ease as thou h 1t had been straw
Span after span tottered and fell, and so
thick was the floating wealth of the lum-
bermen that vast iron girders We're held
aloft, and in several cases spans were car
ried away bodily on top of the floating lum-
Der. One span of this iron bridge came
down toward us perched high and dry on
the lumber piles, and the many tons Of iron
were hurled against our bridge only to be
hurled back and sunk a shapeless mass
The success of our bridge in withstanding
the fury of the flood is considered remark
able. It Is long wooden structure which
spans the river at the east end Of the city.
From daylight last Monday week until
long after dark 1T was the target of every
thing that foated by, but 1t resisted every
assault. and still stands the pride of every
railroad man in that section. The outside
covering of the bridge was torn of and
many tf the timbers battered out of shape.
The ca RS we had run on the bridge showed
of no rvi fhey had