Milford chronicle., 1904-01-08
49, ID ENeINEERs.
les Of Track Of Railroads Sinking
In Amerfca's Dead Sea.

Is Of Track of Railroads Sinking
In Amerfcn'a Dead Sea.
svbat is the matter with the bottom
Ameri a's Dead seattle Great Salt
of utah-that it viii not support
! fortv-elght miles Of grade and tres
that the Southern Pacific engineers
save been trying to construct across
81 arm Of it,
In recert issue Of the Los Angeles
IAN Times appeared a dispatch from
salt Lake City telling about the diff
-5sulties encountered, necessitating the
Dostponement again and again Of the
onening Of this cutoff IN the Central
Pacific line for the running Of trains.
Miles and miles of the new track have
sunk as much as seven feet below
Grade. and that after a firm foundation
was thought to have been secured by
driving piles to a great depth. A num-
her of work trains have even been
swallowed by the salty sea through the
sudden giving awSy Of the bottom
It Tas been surmised that Bear river
has filed in the bottom of the lake with
a sediment too weak to sustain the
great weight thrown upon it by the
building Of the railroad track on a pom
toon of piles. A. ]. Woodbury., who
has devoted some study to the problem.
saws there is doubtless another cause.
He ascribes It to the existence Of a
ouicksand Of unknown depth under
thin layer Of river mud. Said Mr..
woodbury.:
"Ogden is ten miles from Great Salt
lake and 100 feet higher. In the early
nineties an effort was made TO develop
natural gas. which had been success
fully accomplished some miles to the
southwark At depth 400 feet lower
than the present bottom of the lake the
drill brought up pieces of wood. have
in my possession now some Of the bits
Of wood, which secured at the time
Whether the wood grew there or was
brought down by an avalanche or great
food there is of course no way Of tell
ing, but there it is. with 400 feet Of
earth on top of it.
sThere are no scars on the face Of
the country round about to indicate
the great changes that have taken
place other than the old shore line Of
the lake. which can be traced for miles
and miles along the side Of the Wa
satch mountains. 1000 feet higher than
the present surface of the lake, max
ing it the largest inland body Of water
of which we have any knowledge. 1t
is evident that when this vast lake
was drained the water went out with
a rush. but whether by the Snake riv-
er route or the Grand canyon Of the
Colorado biologists have never definite /
ly determined. However. that has
nothing to do with the subject under
except to show the won
derful changes that have taken place |
in the great intermountain basin since
the upheaval of the continent
"What was the result of the boring
for gas at Ogden? Shortly after the
drill passed through the stratum of
wood it encountered quicksand which /
ba1ied all attempts at further progress,
so the work was abandoned. This sand |
in all probability extends out under
the lake.
at is easy to conjecture, therefore,
that the Southern Pacific engineers
have encountered an unknown depth
Of quicksand, with a thin veneering Of
Bear river mudY
VIII the engineers be able to over
come this difficulty? That is a question
that must be answered and a problem
to be solved before the millions already
spent in trying to shorten the line Of
the Central Pacific between Ogden and
California will become effective. Ap-
a harder engineering task was
never. undertaken. The outcome will
be watched with interest.