The Idaho Republican., 1915-09-24
ELECTRICITY THE
MODERN POWER


Could Benjamin Franklin have
seen the effect Of the little key he
tied to the kite had In reyolutionizing
irrigation project construction, as it
has revolutionized almost everything
else, he would have witnessed human
beings working like ants in great
cavity at night above city boring
into the very bowels of the mountains
under the powerful play of search
light. They we're helping to make a
great excavation below the Boise
river bed SO that the highest dam in
the world, the. Arrowrock. could be
anchored to solid granite base. His
discovery of electricity, made it posy-
sible to build this dam in record time
or in four years at a cost OF five mil
lions of dollars 1t stands complete
today, masterpiece to the engineer
ing profession and its formal dedi-
cation in which Boise and all Idaho
will joyfully participate, will take
place October with proper ceremo-
ny. Its construction means the irri-
cation Of an empire, o4n, 900 acres Of
land in western Idaho
A coal mine not beirg available in
1912 when work on the dam was
started, the reclamation service en-
gineers in charge of f. e. Weymouth,
supervising engineer; G. H. Paul,
constructing engineer; and James
Mum, superintendent of construction
to whom credit is due for the project
and dam building, proceeded to har-
ness the waterpower going to waste
in the Boise river is miles below the
dam site, to provide power for the
great steam shovels which had to be
operated, for other power purposes
as well as for lighting. Coal would
have been too expensive for this pur-
pose and the supply uncertain. Water
was plentiful and close at hand.
They erected the Boise hydro-elec-
trio power plant primarily for con-
struction purposes at what is known
as diversion dam, the point where
water released from the great dam
above Is diyented into the main canal
leading to the lands Of the project
80 and 40 miles below. The dam
and project finished, the electric plant
stands valuable asset for both. lit
is built of concrete and steel at a
point on the river where 25-foot
fall is secured. It consists Of three
Chalmers 725 horsepower hy-
drolic turbines, each with direct con-
nections to an Eva generator. It's
capacity is from $500 to 5000 horse
power. The output is three-phase,
SO cycle, alternating current at 1900
volts which is Transmitted from the
station at $4,000 volts.
Without this power, construction
of the dam would have been made
doubly difficult. With It the power
question, an important one in their
construction, was quickly solved.
Transmission lines we're built both
to the dam and to project points. 1t
kept dredges atsboth places busy for
several years. When the problem of
building bitches for drainage came
up, the power from the plant sup
piled the electric dredges.
A record was made in the dam con-
struction. Credit for the record is
largely due to electricity for with it
feeding into powerful searchlights it
was possible to keep night shift
on the job-and so well was the light
distributed that the men worked as
well as in the daytime. Two other
shifts preceededeth night shift which
went on at O'Clock p. M, having
had breakfast as 4:S0 p. m. From
two to three hours after they had
been at work the search lights were
turned on Their powerful rays car
ried across the deep canyon lighting
up the cableways, struck the hoppers
where the concrete buckets dumped
and played about and on every
avenue of occupation Arc lights were
pulled out over the works on cables
stretched overhead Clusters of in
candescents, with an arc here and
there, lighted up the railway. There
were no dark corners within the
limits of activity for the artificial
light was apparently as good as Old
Sol himself could provide. When it
is realized that close to 500 men
composed the shift and had almost
as many different duties to perform
while danger to life and limb was
always possible, the advantage of
electrical energy SO used can be ap-
preciated. Without abundance sof
electrical energy for the searchlights,
a third shift would have been impos-
sible and the great dam would not
stand completed today. The plant