The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-07-12

each composed Of three cables of con
per wire about half inch in diane
ter. st. Louis gets $4,000 horse now
er of the current produced, which is
about half of the amount at this time
being produced and about one-fifth
OF what can be generated.
The power zone, from Burlington
TO st. Louis, is practically free from,
steam engines now, although only
! ABOUT half of the power house is
completed and in operation, the bal
ance being 65 Per cent complete and
only awaiting the additional demand
lor power to be furnished and put
into service
Electricity is commodity that
must be Produced every second of
, tlme in exactly the quantity being
used at that second, and production
must always-to be good service-ex-
actly equal the consumption, and
Just how perfectly this is regulated
in this plant you will be shown a
little later.
10 bring in factories or other power
using, industries to use all the power
capable Of being produced by this
great plant seems like a HercuIean
task, for it involves the shifting west
ward OF the manufacturing center of
the United States. About six hundred
very large plants must be moved into
the Mississippi river power zone be-
fore the dam can be put TO its ca
pacity test
The world war should really be
counted as time lost in this enter
prise, yet in spite of that general
hold-up Of all new business ventures,
the schedule of the moving Of indus
tries and the sale Of power from this
great plant is holding it's own with
the record for the year 1918
Many Big Plants.
Very large manufacturing plants
making carbide, ferro-siicon, hard
lead, tire and other basic industries !
have located in the power zone since
the plant was completed and the !
wheels set in motion on July 1, 1913 |
Such plants are coming to the zone
every year, but many more will be ,
welcomed and well cared for
The dam itself is Of concrete. fifty
two feet high to the top Of the cause
way, all being supported by arched |
. pans 1 IS Wallet lows uuUeI LlG !.
arches over spillways forty-two feet |
high. On top of the causeway are
railroad tracks, lamp posts and other
things one usually finds in a busy
business street The dam proper is
nine-tenfhs of a mile long, and is set
in channel cut several feet into the
hard limestone bottom OF the Mis-
sissippi river.
The water energiZing the gigantic
generators flows past one end Of the
power house into a large fore-bay 1t
then passes through the power house
basement, from one side to the other,
and in the passage, running through
and whirling the titanic turbine wa
ter wheels.
The power house is third of
mile long, half a city block wide and
the height of fifteen-story sky
scraper. The water wheels are four
times as large as the largest ever
made before. To get them from the
foundry at Akron, Ohio, where they
we're made, a special car was built
IN which one turbine rested on edge
IN deep sling. its lower edge being
only four inches above the railway
-ails AS it progressed, the railroads
lad to remove water tank spouts and
,oal chutes to allow it to pass, and
t was routed in a devious way in
order to avoid railway bridges. This
vas repeated until all the wheels ,
we're safely installed in the bottom ;
# the power house. j
The electric generators are at the {
upper end Of the vertical shafts. on
he lower end of which are the water ]
VII cells, with the whole shaft with its t
turbines and generators. The COM ,
lined weight which each such shaft '