The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-01
R. NJ. Jones Heads a Huge Under
taking.
RICH SYNDICATE IN IT
DOUBLE POWER PLANT TO BE
CONSTRUCTED.
Mammoth Scheme Planned Tor a
Point In the Great Cripple Creek
District Of Colorado-salt Lake
Electrical Expert Left For Scene
of His Labors Last Night.

r. M. Jones, the electrical and civil
engineer who presides over the desti-
MES of the Jordan Narrows power plant
and the Bingham Tunnel company, was
recently released from his contract
with those companies to the extent of
being able to give three-fourths of his
time to the construction OF big dam
and double power plant for a wealthy
syndicate which is to supply light and
power to the great Cripple Greek min
ing district of Colorado.
Mr.. Jones returned yesterday from
a months trip to San Francisco, where
with the assistance of large corps of
draughtSmen, he has been preparing
plans for the work in hand with the
utmost dispatch and he was so busy
getting ready to leave for Colorado
yesterday that he scarcely had time to
tell what he was going to do.
Left Last Night.
He left on last nights east bound
train and will return again on his way
back to Frisco about a week hence.
Mr.. Jones said that for special rea-
sons he could not say just where the
big plant was to be located, nor who
composed the company which had I'M
-dertaken the work, but there were fea-
lures concerning it which would be
of interest and those he did not mind
mentioning.
In the first place, the great dam
which will confine the water for power
purposes, is the first of it's kind ever
constructed. 1t will be built entirely
of steel and erected on absolutely new
principles. At the place selected for
the dam the earth has been eXcavated
to bedrock clear across the canyon and
into the rugged hillsides at the extrem-
tiles of the cut.
High Sheet Of Steel.
Into this will be embedded and an
chored a sheet of steel, 50 to speak,
seventy feet high and 2S5 feet long.
This big sheet steel barrier will be clip
teal in form with the concave side fac
ing upstream or against the pressure
of the water. From the sides of this
monster sheet steel rods will be at
tached and run out at equal distances
from top to bottom and from one end
to the other and firmly anchored in
the bedrock underlying the great lake
which the dam will form. The whole
structure, Mr.. Jones. says, having been
figured out on a safety factor of two
to one.
To connect with the power plants
which will be established, one below
the other at some distance from the
dam, five miles of 30-inch wood stave
pipe and nearly one mile of 2S-inch
steel pipe, which will sustain a pres
sure of 49S pounds to the square inch
at the lower end, will be used. The first
station will generate 1000 kilowats,
which will be sufficient to deliver 1,60O
horsepower to consumers. The second
station will have the same capacity.
The two stations will aggregate in
cost and capacity about one and one
half times as much as either the Big
Cottonwood or Jordan Narrows plants,
a comparison which gives a general
idea of the magnitude of the under
taking.
Mr.. Jones' host of friends will be
glad to hear of his having been selected
as constructing engineer on this big
piece of scientific work.