Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1912-11-29
AN IRON ROSE AS
LARGE AS HOUSE
Ma stodon Water Wheel for Mis-
sissippi River Power Plant
at Keokuk.

Keokuk. Iowa, Nov 29.-There was
cast the other day a colossal iron rose,
of such mastodon proportions, that
railroads had to be rearranged to
transport It from the foundry to the
place where it will hang on steel
stem for a thousand years. -
1t had to be cast in the central plain
of the American continent, for its des-
tination is the Mississippi river, and
it is utterly impossible to transport
it over the mountain divisions of rail-
reads, so huge is this rose shaped
titanic turbine water wheel.
1t was cast in Akron, Ohio, by pour
iri 73 tons of molten metal into a
mold that it took weeks to fashion
a mold which was a mass of convolut-
ed curves as complex as a double rose
/ in full bloom, and as large as a work
II ans cottage. 1t took week to haul
it to Hamilton, Ill, opposite Keokuk,
whence 1t was taken over the great
| dam to the Iowa side and deposited in
/ the power house that is three times as
large as any ever built before.
The species of mankind which Is
| found growing most Iuxuriantly
against the walls OF small railroad sta
tions waiting for the trains to arrive
we're mystified by the queer shape and
immense size of that mass of metal on
specially built car on which it rode
from Lake Erie to the Mississippi.
One of George AIDES constituents
with ash colored whiskers vowed that
it was the Taft steam roller, when it
arrived at a little Indiana station.
Across the line in Illinois, a man on
a load of pumpkins by the track shout
ed that it was Teddy's wheel OF for
tune. Back in Ohio a group on the
platform argued whether it was a
cream separator for Elgin, or a snow
pIow for the Rocky mountains.
This turbine is several times as
large in dimensions as any ever built
before 1t is of new design and OF
much higher efficiency than the previ-
Gus record. Thirty similer ones viii
he placed in the mammoth power
house at Keokuk, hanging on the bot
tom of a steel shaft over two feet in
diameter and whirling by the force OF
the Mississippi in its mightiest mood
hsrnessed for he first time by man.
1t is over 16 feet in diameter and
over IL feet high, as it sets in its
normal horizontal position. It was
81 ipped on edge, and even then wa
ter tanks and coal chutes had to be
moved and flanked by passing tracks
to get the huge iron rose past them. A
man from the builders who casl II
rode with the car continually. The
train was always accompanied by q
railroad official with authority to move
things out of the way of this monster
piece Of iron. 1t It had tipped over
and it stood high in the air-there was
not crane available adequate TO lift
t. Railroads had TO be chosen which
we're bridgeless, for this water whee
is too big to pass the average railroad
bridge.
IL was a week Of worry that just
ended with the arrival OF this TecorC
breaking water wheel at its destina
ton.
This turbine is one OF the 30 to b.
installed in the water power develop
rient in the Mississippi which is tb'
q eatest engineering achievement II
] the world today except only the Pan
5 anna canal. Subject always to the ap
Z proval OF the war department engi
{ Hee-s for every detail, Chief Engfnec
5 Hugh l. Cooper is building here no
2 only the mammoth of water powers
+ but a lock superior il some respects I
any al Panama and dry dock only