Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1938-12-29
RIVER FLOWS BESIDE
HUGE STREAM OF GRAVEL

A stream, which seems like Tenny-
son IS brook to flow on and on forev-
err, pours sand and gravel into stock
piles at Grand Coulee Dam at the
rate of 10000 toms day. Miles of
swift running betting, driven by
great motors make this record break
ng feat possible.
More than 100000 cubic yards
of sand and gravel have already been
taken out of the pit, and more than
100000 tons of it are already
iii the dam; and the job iS not half
done.
When the Bureau Of Reclamation
undertook to build dam which will
be greater in volume than would be
possible if every man, woman and
child in the United States should
place rock just as big as himself on
mound, the problem of finding and
moving to the site 100000 cubic
yards of good sand and gravel con-
fronted it's engineers.
High above the river, mile and
half downstream, underlying small
precarious patch of dry farm land,
they discovered a deposit of sand and
gravel laid down there thousands Of
years ago by a glacial stream which
flowed into the lake formed i'm the
canyon of the Columbia River when
the Cordilleran Ice Cap came down
from the north and blocked the chan
ned. From thousands of square miles
of the north country, the glacier ga
thered AMI brought to this spot the
Smooth worn particles of natural
rock that workmen now are casting
into the biggest piece of artificial
stone in the world.
Day and night, electric shovels
with buckets of S-cubic yard capac-
| ity move the sand and gravel from
the bank to belt conveyer OF huge
trucks, which deliver them to crush
ing plant, where boulders dropped
ages ago from floating icebergs are
broken down to maximum size of
six inchees. Washing facilities carry
away fine glacial silt, and screens
and classifiers sort out three sizes of
sand, later blended in proper proper
tons, and four sizes of gravel
According to the exacting stand
ards set up for the concrete for the
Grand Coulee Dam, nature overdid
the crushing and grinding that pro-
duced the sand and gravel deposit,
providing sand to the extent of 65
per cent, while only % per cent of
the aggregate in the dam can be sand
AS consequence, a small mountain
OF several millions yards of waste
sand has been built up near the
screening plant. Crushing the boul.
ders which we're dropped at the
mouth of the prehistoric stream by
lcebergs increases the gravel output
OF the pit and reduces the wasting of
sand.
Water for the washing Of the ag-
gregate is pumped up to the plant
from the river against a head of
$40 feet. Being on that account too
valuable to run to waste, two largo
clarifiers were installed near the
screening plant. One is a circular con-
crete pond, 125-feet in diameter and
the other is $50 feet long and 1875
feet. wide with rounded ends In them
fine maternal settles to the bottom
and is drawn off at the center, while
clear water overflows the rims Of
the bowls, to be used again in the
screening and washing plant. Water
circulated through the plant at the
rate of 10000 gallons a minute,
enough passing in a single day to
serve the domestic requirements of
city of nearly 100000 persons.
Over tn longest single belt con.
veyer in the world, workman post
ed a mile away, by remote control
causes sand. or any one of the four