The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19

and at the top is 6S0 feel long. and 16 feet
 wide. The spillways at either end are 200 feet wide, so the length. inclusive of the bridges over the spillways, is 10S0 feet. The spillways are blasted from the
 mountain sides.
 The dam contains SSs. 400 cubic yards of masonry. every stone of which was washed before 1t was permanently ce- mented In place In the construction 9f the dam and auxiliary works 33S, 452 bar rels of cement were used, all manufas- | tured on the ground at cost of Sl,06S, | 542, in a cement mill erected by the gov ernment and recently sold. The cost was s IA per barrel, as against s4.S9 per bar rel, the best private bid available when | operations began. The manufacture of 1 cement on the ground effected saving of S592, 300.
 The first stone was laid in the founda- ton September 20. 1906. The last stone was laid on the coping 2S4 feet above, February 6, 1911. The upper face of the dam is almost perpendicular The lower face retreats like the pyramids in huge stone steps from the width of ITO feet in | the foundation to 16 feet at the top. No less interesting are the auxiliary and correlated works such as the cement mlll, the hydro-electric plants for generating so0O- horsepower, and what is termed the power canal, built to operate the first unit of the electric plant, creating power TOT dam construction.
 Skirting the north end of the dam, ai- most under the srillway and driven through the solid rock is tunnel No ?, 115 feet above the river bed, Its sole mission is to release irrigation water when the reservoir shall contain it above that ele- vation, and when it is desired to release d greater quantity than will come through the penstock supplying the power mousse
 The third exit for flood water, one that
 Is most necessary but will be least used, and the largest of all, is known as the sluicing tunnel, or tunnel No. l. It was driven through the solid mountain cir cling the south end of the site, at the river level, before tfe construction of tho dam began. It will be used for sluic-
 ing silt, if necessary, and for releasing a
 larger irrigation supply than the pen stock furnishes, if needed, when the water elevation in the reservoir is below the entrance to tunnel No. ?.
 Among the earliest construction fea- lures was the building of a freight road co miles long from Mesa City, the nearest available railroad point, to the Roosevelt dam site. Of this, % miles is across a desert and 3S miles through the most inn pressive mountain scenery in the west. The road was constructed for permanency and though as crooked as knotted rope and often winding around the face of a cliff, it is as fine a thoroughfare as city street.
 The foregoing constructions constitute the larger features of the storage enter prise, GO miles or more above the lands to be irrigated. 5'he distributing system is no less interesting though no one fea- ture is so great. The water released from the dam runs down the river channel for nearly 60 miles to Granite reef, a point just below the confluence of the Verde and Salt rivers, where q concrete weir dam 1000 feet long and 3S feet high dverts water through main canal on either side of the river, to numerous canals below, covering the entire reservoir district. Tho allotment of funds for this project to date is about nine millions, and it may take two millions more to fully complete all contemplated work. The toll in human lives has been r at Roosevelt and five at Granite reef as near as can be ascer- tained, through mechanical accidents and drowning.
 The work to be done will include several plans for development of hydro-eectric power at favorable places along the canals, the power to be used mainly in developing an auxiliary irrigation water supply pumped from the vast under ground resources. It is calculated that the reservoir, or gravity flow, will even tually water 190,000 acres and that 5000 acres will be watered by pumps.