The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-05-06
WILL CONSTRUCT
UNIVERSITY u"
All of the Students Will Take
Part in Building I'M
menSe Letter.
PRESENTS MANY PROBLEMS
LIFTING OF WATER is A PUz-
FLING QUESTION.
PRESENTS MANY PROBLEMS

| me NOrk OF recOnStructllg the big
! ''U'' on the mountains northeast of the
city by the students of the university
has begun. There will be large num-
bers working at the task all of this
week in the hope of completing it in
time for the Boulder track meet next
Saturday The plans are to take out
! the lime rock, of which the letter is
now made, and to fill in with concrete
and cover the concrete with broken
| mirrors, so as to give a dazzling eff
feet, as of a bed of gems 1t is a ire
mendouS undertaking, as the letter is
l0o feet long and ninety feet wide. 1t
is on steep hillside, miles from the
nearest road
The university students have a busy
week ahead of them. The freshmen
will start it off by cutting school all
day today and doing the part of the
preparatory work assigned to them.
They must screen 200 cubic feet of
gravel aud 100 cubic feet of sand. About
fifty boys viii be at work on the job.
but it will keep them busy to finish ii.
Ended in Compromise.
The place where the concrete will be
mixed is the top of the dump of an
old dugout, where prospects were made
for fireclay. The soil of the dugout has
turned black on exposure to air, leav-
ing large pile of black earth on the
side of the mountain. 1t was here that
the idea of making figures on the
mountain by the use of the lime rock
was first conceived. A class put its
numerals on this black ground and it
became the battle-ground of a two
weeks fight between two classes. 1t
was the worst class fight ever waged
at the school. Through a compromise
Of the two conflicting parties the pres
ent "U' was put in.
The sophomores have prepared this
for a mixing place by making excava-
structed two paths from the mixing
place to the top and bottom of the
gu" These paths are 700 and 500 feet
long.
The seniors are set down to box the
~ in with planks. This will take 500
linear feet of lumber, or more than
enough to stretch along a city block.
Besides this, 1850 feet will be used on
the inside of the u The letter is
built on a hillside, and these planks
will run parallel to the width of the
letter so as to prevent all the concrete
from settling at the bottom of the
IL
The normals have a large undertake
ing. They will repair an old wagoIf-
road from the city to a lime kiln that
has closed down. 1t is about a half
mile from the mixing place, and the
students will have to carry the ma
terials this distance The road is COM
pletely washed away in some places,
and nearly two-thirds of it will have
to be reconstructed.
The most interesting obstacle is the
water problem. The junior class has
been assigned to this, and it Will take
the best efforts of the engineers in the
class to solve it. The Tech club, an or
ganiZation of engineers from the upper
classmen, has considered the problem
for several weeks, and has not arrived
at any practical solution. Saturday
some of the class ran levels over the
surrounding hills and made a map of
the ground. Among the solutions that
have been suggested are: Borrowing
enough hose from the fire department
to Syphon the water from a spring a
couple of ranges behind the IT," Sc
cure water from some prospect holes
in the vicinity that have been filled by
the winter storms: pump Il from Dry
canyon by a series of gasoline engines;
get it up to the u from the foot of the
mountain by relay of hose and pumps
ending in a tank; that is. have two
tanks and fill the upper one, then move
the lower one farther up and fill it;
pull the water up in buckets by some
mechanical means; erect tramway
so that the weight of the buckets filled
with the lime from the old "U'' will
bring buckets of water up, and carry
ing it along in buckets by a line of
students. All of these would require
much time, work and money. so the
juniors are still at work ON a better
scheme.
After all of this preliminary work
has been done, on Thursday and Friday
the whole school will work at
putting the ''U'' in. The students will |
ask the business men of the town for |
to defray the expense.
The big "U" attracts the eye of the |
tourist This makes it one of the best |
mediums that the school |
has. and many prominent citizens have |
said it is one of the best things that |
the students have ever done. PERMITS |
sion has been granted by the authori- |
ties at Fort Douglas to trespass on the |
grounds in the erection of |
the GU"
The effect of the broken mirrors will |
be extremely beautiful. Experiments |
OH a small scale have proved this. and |
the magnitude of the ''U'' will send the |
sparkling rays of light throughout the |
valley