Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1911-02-11
IPERPLEMT|ES OF
CANAL NAVIGATION
Mariner w. A. Parish Refuses to Sur
render to Unexpected Difficulties.

! Engineer w. A. Parish. navigator eN-
traordinary for the reclamation serv-
ice. in getting his big dredger back up
to the canal head is encountering OBJ
stacles the like of which Christopher
Columbus never had to face in travers-
ing unknown seas on his venturesome
voyage for the discovery of America.
His flagship is not only rudderless and
crude in its navigating equipment, but
he also has to make artificial seas over
which to sail his awkward craft back
end foremost towards its goal Mr..
Parish is getting there though just as
effectively as Christopher did and if
anything faster.
Admiral Farish's boat. like a good
many tubs. goes fine while it IT, drift
| ing with the current. but the stream is
too narrow to turn around in and il
| is doubtful if he could make any bet
ter progress even if he did turn the
boat around. He first tried to drag
| the dredge up stream by mules. canal
boat fashion. When that failed he tried
the cable and dead man plan, the
theory of which is very like that of a
man lifting himself up by the boot
straps. That failed to work and then
he undertook to kick the boat up back
wards, using the crane and dipper as
a push pole. This scheme worked all
right where there was water enough in
the canal but to fill the ditch ard keep
it full would waste a lot of water the
valley did not need for irrigating pur-
poses, just now and moreover there
was very strong current to overcome,
SO il was abandoned.
But the competent engineer never al
lows himself to be more than tenn
porarily embarrassed by undesirable
conditions. 1t is solving problems that
makes an engineer competent and Mr.
Parish has a reputation to sustain both
as an admiral and an engineer The
plan he finally worked out was that
OF throwing up a mud dam below the
craft just high enough TO hold water
enough TO float ii for a mile or so up
the stream. This made a kind of a
lock in the canal and it did not take
long TO fill ii, even with the small flow
the canal was carrying. Then he
brought his dipper into play as a push
pole and as the boat rested in quiet wa
ter carrying practically no current he
could make very good progress He
would be a mile up stream clear across
the still water and run aground. by
that time the water coming down the
canal would top his mud dam and wash
1t out. Then with the dredger il would
only take little while to build another
one. making another dead water lock
mile or so long. BY this process the
flagship is moving along at the rate of
about one mile for each eight-hour'
shift. 1t is not as rapid travel as a
steamship generally affords, but il is
pretty good sailing for so large a tub
on an Arizona desert
While this is going on Mr.. Parish
has other troubles also. notably at the
eXcavator further down the canal. That
machine suffered a fracture of the
drum stick" or rather the drum shaft
on Thursday and win be out of COM
mission for a day or so until a new one
can be made. This work will require
the services of an iron molder rather
IMAM doctor. But speaking of doc
tors, Mr.. Parish has among the exca-
vator force blacksmith who is max
ing pretty good record as A dentist
His single patient is the dipper on
the excavator which has four big iron
teeth. steel filled. weighing from 15O
to 175 pounds each. These break or
get worn off occasionally and the
blacksmith has acquired such skill in
their repair that he can on short notice
turn out a set of dipper teeth that are
more serviceable and equally as orna
mental as those that come from the
nf he