Los Angeles herald., 1910-11-27

| -
ABOVE (AT LEFT)-OwENs RIVER A
LEFT)-DIvIsIoN CREEK POWER
ditch, cemented ditch and tunnels be-
fore it reaches the Haiwee reservoir
| This reservoir is a natural depression
In the earth that looks as If it were
capable of holding all the water in the
world. The water can be poured into
this hole in any quantity and from this
point will be regulated the expected
| 20, 900 miners inches which will flow
into Los Angeles daily.
RESERVOIR Is LARGE
When this reservoir is full the
Owens river can stop running for three
months and the daily 10000 miners
inches can still be sent through the
Los Angeles distributing system The
| lay mind can get an adequate idea how
vast Is such a quantity Of water when
| 1t is explained that one miners inch
is equal to a flow of nine gallons per
| second.
Haiwee is one of the busiest points
| on the line of the aqueduct. To COM
plete the natural reservoir a dam Is
being constructed that is one of the
largest of it's kind in the west. This
dam is to have a clay core wall and
an excavation to bed rock, ninety
! feet below the bottom OF the reservoir
| Is being made for this wall. Bed rock
has been struck on both ends of the
dam and it is now being worked to-
wards the center.
The tufa mill is also located at
Haiwee, for part OF the hills that form
the sides OF the natural reservoir are
| formed of tufa. Tufa Is a soft white
| rock, much like clay, and Is used to
mix with cement. In using this tufa
the aqueduct department has gone
back to the days of the Romans who
| built famous aqueducts that still ex-
| ist The aqueduct cement Is made at
the municipal cement mills at Monolith,
| west of Mojave, and the quantity to
be used on the northern end of the
aqueduct is sent to Haiwee, where 1t
Is mixed with the tufa. Besides get
ting a superior grade of cement, mix
ing with the tufa saves many thousands
of dollars in freight haul. 1t costs an
even dollar a barrel to haul cement
from Monolith to Haiwee.
CUTS COST IN HALF
So when 1000 barrels of cement are
sent to HaiWee they are mixed with
1000 barrels of tufa, resulting in 1000
barrels of cement at a cost of only
80 cents a barrel for freight. Mulhol-
land estimates that nearly 100000 will
! D6 5cN6u III llCl6tb oAOAAS ~ A'AAAo
| tufa in place of neat cement.
Tufa cement has been used largely
! in Germany and other foreign coun-
tries, but has entered little into con-
struction work on this continent be-
| cause it was supposed that only In
| Germany could be found deposits Of
tufa. But when the line was laid for
the aqueduct 1t was found there was
plenty of tufa on land owned by the
city.
Results Of more than 10000 tests con-
Quoted by aqueduct experts have
shown that up to ten days neat cement
sets better than tufa cement, but af-
ter that tufa passes the neat and at
the end of thirty days the tufa product
is much harder than the pure Portland
article.
The reports that have reached Los
Angeles that the cement work was
inferior have been due to the fact
that those who made the reports
were not familiar with the character of
tufa cement, and compar@ the neat
and tufa cernents soon after they are
| laid instead of testing both when
month old. Mulholland has heard
these reports of inferior cement work
and he has tried to find where 1t Is.
WANTS TO BE SHOWN FAULTS
I'm a good deal more anxious than
anyone else to find out If any of this
cement work is bad" said Mulholland.
"And 1 would be very grateful If those
who say they know would point 1t
out But I've taken picks and dug
at 1t all along the line and can't find
it."
Although lack Of funds has made it
necessary to shut down several of the
steam shovels, some of these monster
devices are at work on the Olancha
division near Haiwee and at other
points on the aqueduct. The rapidity
with which the aqueduct has been
built can be understood when one sees
these monsters gulping great chunks
of owens valley and Mojave desert in
their yawning jaws. The efficiency of
the steam shovels in this work is due
largely to improvements in construc-
ton that are Mulhollands own ideas.
When the aqueduct department first
advertised for bids for machines of
this kind that would do the work the
steam shovel makers all said it could
not be done and refused to submit
proposals. MuIholland got hold of the
representatives of the Marion Steam
Shovel company and asked them If they
would build steam shovels according
to his specifications. They dublously
looked over the specifications and said
they would, but they would not guar
antee them to do the work. Mulhol-
land told them to build the shovels
and he would take care of the guaran-
tee The shovels were built and now
the Marion company is turning out
shovels for the Panama canal that are
h,1iIt on Mulholland's ideas.