Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-01-01
PULLING A RIVERS TEETH.
The Novel Attempt That Is Being
Made to Perform That Operation on
the Columbia.

| as a highway Offering opportunities
for cheap water transportation, the
| Columbia River is second only to the
Mississippi. 1t drains territory of
nearly quarter of a million square
miles. Ocean going vessels ascend the
river for ITO miles above its mouth;
| light draught river craft ply its waters
| 500 miles from the coast.
TO the region traverSed the high
way of the Columbia is even more inn
portant than the Mississippi, is to its
TERRITORY. Two mountains chains run
parallel with the country's western
coast from Mexico to the Dominion
| line The Columbia is the only river
on this 2000 mile stretch that has brok-
en- through the double barrier and pro-
Vidcd a water grade from the ocean to
/ the vast region lying between the
| Rockies and the eastern slopes of the
| Cascades and the Sierras.
| For two decades engineers have been
Trying to open this most important wa
| ter gate to the largest liners on the
| Pacific by creating a deep safe channel
across the dreaded bar. The task is
| not yet finished. Before this engineer
ling project, the largest undertaken by
| the Government except the Panama
Canal. is completed S16.600,000 will have
been spent in the battle with the wild
| North Pacific, not counting the mill
lions now being spent in widening the
Columbia's throat.
| At the mouth of every river shoals
| have been heaped up by the deposits
! OF silt or sand in the conflict of tides
| and currents, but the broad wall of
shifting sand piled around the Column
bias mouth has proved more untracta-
/ BILE than almost any other bar, even
| though the river carries only "a negli-
gibIe quantity of silt. Like a sub
merged rampant the bar surrounds the
rivers mouth in a vast semi-circie.
| Between the two headlands, historic
Cape Disappointment in the north and
Clatsop Spit in the south. the river s
channel varies in depth from forty to
eighty feet. Seven miles out in the
open sea, where the submarine barrier
rises. only nineteen or twenty feet of
water were available before the en-
gineers began operations, and this
depth existed only in a narrow chan
mel across the bar.
! Dredging was out of the question.
| The tremendous seas driven by the
winters storms against the bar would
have neeessitated suspension of work
for months at a time. The masses of
unstable sand were too great to be at
tackled successfully by pigmy dredge
| and the natural channel was constant
| ly shifting from place TO place over an
| arc of nearly $50 degrees. No force but
the strength of the mighty river itself
could cope with the bar. It was de-
cided to let the Columbia do the dig
eing by concentrating it's current
against the centre of the hidden RAM
part.
At a cost of 900 a rock wall
IVAN was built from the southern head
| Hand out into the ocean for four and a
half miles. The jetty, completed in
1895, fulfilled its purpose. 1t guided the
lundssipated force Of the Columbia s
current against the bar and made it
scour a channel thrty-one feet deep
at low tide, Il gain of eleven feet.
| Portland the city whose harbor lies
| far inland behind a mountain range
hailed the deepening of the channel
with joy, Through thirty-foot chan
mel from the open sea the largest YES
| sells on the Pacific would be able to
reach its docks. Therefore Portland
was jubilant but the eXultation was
short lived.
Gradually the channel shoaled up
lagain The ietty was TOO short and
could not permanently concentrate the
current BY 1900 the entire gain in
depth had been lost, and the gate was
once more closed TO the larger steam
| ers
An extension of the jetty three miles
| into the ocean to the inner slope of the
bar was decided upon. together with q
supplementary jetty extending two
land a half miles out from the north
headland. Cape Disappointment. BY
means of these two jetties it was hop
ed permanently to contract and confine
the current so that its action would
maintain an adequate channel across
the bar.
On paper the task appeared simple
In practice the construction of a three
mile ietty in the open sea, with no pro-
lection whatever from the terrific
storms that sweep the North Pacific
| in winter and spring, proved to be
Misunderstanding enterprise.
Two years and 600 sufficed for
| the building of the first four miles and
| a half. On the outer three miles work
Il HAS Dttll III DIOSlCSo iOi tlssiie JN"' -
More than sc, 900, 900 have been expend-
ed and it will require another year be-
| fore the task is done and the con-
struction of the north jetty can be
commenced.
SO tremendous were the forces of the
elements with which the builders had
| to contend that even the matter-of-
| fact army engineers in charge of the
work We're awed.
| The trestle over which the rock
trains run at five minute intervals, is
forty feet above the sea. Even in calm
weather the spray is blown over this
trestle and in moderate gales solid
sheets of water slap against the cabs
of the locomotives pulling the rock
cars over the swaying rails.
| Despite the danger work never ceas-
| ed during gales. On one occasion
bowling Southwestern kicked up sea
| so terrific that it tore away nearly half
| q mile of the trestles central portion
before the workers on the outer end
could reach the shore They had to
1 int