The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1913-04-23

on Broad River, in company with Mr..
Robertson's classmates at Yale 'S5.
Parr Shoals is about three miles above
Aston on the Southern Railway and
gets its name fl ON former owner of
q grist mill at that place. The cOun-
" surrounding the Shoals is typical
or the up-cOuntry, with it's rolling
hills and short leaf pine, while here
and there a bold granite outcrop is
seen 1t is not, however, the country
around but the Shoals themselves that
interested us upon this trip. At the
Shoals is being developed an immense
hydro-electric plant which is to sup
ply from 10000 to 10000 horse-pow-
er for use in Columbia.
Last summer a contract of about
two and a half millions dollars was
given to the j. G. White Contracting
Company of New York for the purpose
or constructing a great dam across
Broad River at this point and for the
erection Of machinery and transmits
sion circuits to Columbia. Up to No
vember last, only preparatory work
had been done. A complete town had
been erected, water works, sewerage,
electric lights had been installed and
a beginning had been made In the
construction OF the Golfer dams across
one branch Of the river. The river at
this point Is divided by a sand is
lana into on east and a west branch
and work was begun on the east
branch first
With the completion of the Golfer
dams across the east branch the
stream was entirely diverted from
that part and here is where they are
now working. For the concrete they
require sand, crushed rock and ce-
ment. About a half mile above the
site Of the dam they quarry the gran
ite from the bottom OF a branch of
the river, a seam of rock running
back into the hillside. A tramway
runs from the quarry to the crusher
and from thence to the mixer. Loads
OF stone OF various sizes up to two
feet in diameter are dumped into the
crusher which Is run by hundred
horsepower engine, and the hard
granite is mashed into small pieces as
cracker in his fingers. From the crush
er the rock is carried by bucket eleva-
tor to the sitter which is similar to the
boiling cloth of a flour mill, only this
rock sitter is of steel, and here the
rock is separated into coarse and fine,
and all over two inches is dropped
back into a smaller crusher and brok-
en- again. Dump cars run under the
rock bin and receive their loads of
crushed rock and convey them to the
concrete mixer.
The rock Is dumped into pockets
and raised by elevator buckets about
one hundred feet to large bins above
the two mixers. There is also a bin
above the mixers for sand.
The island mentioned above is
chiefly of sand and it is here that they
get the sand for the concrete. From
tower on the island to another tower
on the shore there stretches a two inch
''"el cable about one thousand feet
long. On the steel cable q runner
weighing two tons is pulled by small
er wire ropes. a steel bucket holding
four cubic Jards of sand is rapidly
filled from bin, is attached to the
runner, Is pulled across the river and
is automatically dumped. While one
bucket is on it's journey, a second is
filled and little time Is lost in attach
ing this upon the return Of the car
rier. A large steam shovel keeps the
bin on the island filled with sand. The
sand on shore is hauled to the mixer
in dump cars as needed.
The mixer structure is about as
high as the standpipe in Sumter and
Is constructed Of heavy round and
square timbers. On one side there is
a long warehouse which is piled full
with carload after carload of ce-
ment. Down the middle of this long
building and running to the mixers is
a twenty-four inch belt conveyor. A
workman in the warehouse puts
sack after another on this conveyor
which whisks it on several hundred
feet to the mixer where it is quickly
opened and emptied and added to its
proportion Of sand and rock. Every
few minutes the mixer disgorges it's
charge of concrete into dump cars
which are hurried on to the forms on
the side of the dam.
At the site Of the dam there is a
forest Of derricks. The granite has
been blasted way below the river bot