Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-01-17
The Bridge as Applied to tho Highway.

have been watching the bridge in
terests on the public highways of Iowa
for over thirty years. Only that l
have seen it, could l have believed
that the people of Iowa would have
erred so much in bridge building.
There seems to be one thing in con-
nection with this matter that seems
hard for the people to understand ana
that Is under drainage.
| have been thing on my farms now
| for tWenty-one years. learned Inc
first wear that where ground was thor
oughly underdrained, that 1t became
| firm and would hold up any kind of
/ load.
There seems to be q disposition on
the part of the people generally to
| want to take care of the surface waite:
and to pay no attention whatever to
| the ground water. which is all wrong.
Just northeast of my home, one and
one quarter miles, Is little Slough
| that crosses the road, which drains be-
tween five and six hundred acres.
There has already been built four for
| ty-four foot bridges in the last thir-
| ty-three years. Now right down
l AROUND Tie COlUGI, oiiiS oiAS iA''AN 80
| three uuarters southwest, just north oil
| the Bear creek bridge, there has never
been a year there did not ten ana
| twenty times as much surface water
/ go right across the road and yet at TINS
! place the road is always good
I do not hesitate to say that from
seventy-five to eighty-five per cent OF
all the bridges in Iowa could be dis
placed with tile. Experience, observa-
ton and consideration have deepened
my conviction that the surface water
in going across the road will never DO
any harm when the ground is thor
oughly underlaid with large tile four
and one-half feet deep, or deeper.
Right here let me say that the great
majority of people err in not laying
their tile deep enough.
| have put some tile on the road ten
and one half feet deep. There are Ger
tain facts in connection with laying tile
deep that are we'll worth mentioning
right here. 1t is a mistake that a
great many people have that tile can
be laid too deep to drain the surface
water quickly in a wet time. The
! deeper the tile are laid, the quicker
they will drain the surface water in a
wet time The deeper the tile are
laid, the greater the velocity of water.
The deeper the tile are the more stor-
age room you have for water above the
water line.
I think l have made this point clear.
What I mean by displacing bridge
with tile is, to thoroughly underlay
the ground with large tile and then
put in fill in the place Of the bridge
and then put in net work of tile just
above the bridge on the upper side OF
the road.
Now there is another principle In
connection with this. Where the ground
is thoroughly underlaid with tile, we
overcome the principle of capillary at
traction.
I have been noticing very carefully
how even the civil engineers on the
railroads have been laundering over,
the culvert I can prove that all Gull
verts on railroads or public highways
are a nuisance and a needless waste.
They can all be displaced, both the
railroad culverts and the highway Gull
verts, by thoroughly underlying the
ground with large tile five feet deep or
deeper, having good outlet but no
inlet. BY thoroughly draining a res
evoir, you cannot keep water in It,,
either in summer or in winter. Or, In
other words, when the ground is thor
oughly tiled, 1t never freezes SO but
that water will penetrate it.
BY displacing from seventy-five to
eighty-five per cent of the bridges in
this way, we will have saved enough so
that at the present rate of taxation,
we will be enabled to build reinforced
concrete bridges on all Of our living
streams and in fifteen years wipe out
the bridge item, excepting as we would
lay out new roads.