Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-11-02
PIPING WATER TO A DESERT.

PIPING WATER TO A DESERT.
Engineering Feats Planned For West
ern Australia.
1t Is expected that the next few years
will witness the development Of the
most remarkable system Of water car
rying in western Australia that has
ever been seen. The plan is to repeat,
again and again, the successful engi-
neering work that is now supplying the
great gold mining region Of Coolgardie,
far out in the desert Of the interior,
with plenty Of water brought from the
coast mountains, 325 miles away.
This western Australia desert con-
tains perhaps the largest waterless
Carnegie made his second journey
across 1t, several years ago. he travelled
500 miles without finding anything that
suggested a permanent source Of wa
ter.
For many days he saw nothing but
prickly spinifex covering the sand
ridges, which were forty to fifty feet
in height and extended east and west
parallel with one another. He wrote
that he crossed more than eighty Of
these sand ridges in eight hours travel.
But under these repellant sands lie
the great gold resources Of western
Australia that are now supplying more
Of the metal every year than all the
rest Of the commonwealth. When the
rush Of miners to this great thirst re-
gion began. the eager search and the
frantic strife for water was sometimes
tragical.
The government sought for under
ground sources Of supply, but most of
this water was found to be so impreg-
mated with salts that 1t was unfit for
use. Engineers finally devised a plan
of water delivery from the western
mountains, about twenty miles to the
south Of Perth, which involved the
largest pumping scheme that has yet
been carried into operation in any
part of the world.
The works were completed only two
years ago and they are attracting all
the more attention because the popula-
ton that is paying s14,OO0,00O for them
lis still quite small.
The amount of rainfall in the basin of
the Helena river which flows through
the Canning hills south of Perth. is
about thirty inches a year. 1t was
found that by improving this river a
supply OF 100000 gallons day would
be available for transportation into
the interior.
: The problem was to transport this
water a distance of $50 miles. for II
was proposed to extend the aqueduct
to the Kalgoorlie diggings, east Of Cool
gardie, and this has been done. Mum
daring, the place where the Helena riv-
.er was damned, is only about 800
feet above the sea, but the surface Of
the desert to which the water was to
+be carried is about 1850 feet above sea
level so the water was not only to be
transported as far as from New York
city to Lake Erie, but to be lifted dur
ing the process about 1900 feet.
The water which collects back Of the
dam in the Helena river forms a fine
lake seven miles in length. The big
delivery pipe that carries the water is
not buried in the soil, but lies on the
surface or in open trenches, for there is
no danger Of freezing.
There are eight pumping stations, a
little more than forty miles apart, and
the water is kept moving up the long
but very gentle incline. It finally
reaches a reservoir many miles west Of
Coolgardie, and from this point gravi-
tation takes 1t to the $4,000 inhabi-
tants Of the Coolgardie mining camps
and to the Kalgoorlie region beyond
This water is sold out there in the
desert at comparatively small price
considering that interest must be paid
on the money borrowed to develop the
works. 1t sells for about rs cents a
thousand gallons, and 1t supplies not
only those distant mining camps, but
also some twenty or thirty settlements
on the way to them, and small pipes
carry water to stockmen or villages
miles away from the main line.
Up to this time the consumers have
been able to obtain all the water de-
| sired Of the very best quality and at
Iall times Of the year. Stockmen along
the route who had supplied their ami
mails from scanty wells that might
run dry at any time have lost this fear,
for the pipe line Is an unfailing source
of good fresh water at all times.
There has been no interruption Of the
flow on account of accident to the
pumps, because extra pumps are in
stalled at every station for use in case
Of need.
1t is to give the widest possible ap-
plication to this great idea whose prac-
lticability has been so thoroughly de-
monstrated that the people Of western
Australia are now turning their atten-
ftion. The rivers do not come from far
in the interior. for the rainfall is too
small to have much surface flow.
But nearer the coast the precipitation
is quite large, and engineers are now
working on plans for saving all Of this
water that can be collected and sending