Evening Star Newspaper, February 28, 1932, Page 73

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 28 1932 live and work on Uncle Sam’s gigantic new $50,000,000 project that won't be done for six years ‘A striking panoramic sketch of the work in progress at Boulder Dam, big gravel plant. It fs an h can handle 500 tons of cost $500,000—and when fist Yoar « Boulder Darm OT quite one year ago a motor launch chugged up Black Canyon of the Colorado River, where it forms the boundary line between Nevada and Arizona, carrying & party of putteed engineers. After it came other boats, launches and soows, carrying workmen and machinery. On each side precipitous walls of rock rose for 1,000 feet. The yellow river swirled and eddied viciously. There was not even a grav- elly beach for a landing place on either side. A more forbidding place to start a great con- struction job could not be imagined. That was almost a year ago—March 13, 1931, to be exact. Today 3,500 men are working night and day, doing things to that canyon that seem utterly impossible, rushing ahead on the seven- year $50,000,000 job of building Boulder Dam. So rapidly are they triumphing over the dif- ficulties nature put in their way that they be- lieve, now, that they will actually finish the job ahead of timhe. EANWHILE, they are providing one of the most thrilling, breath-taking spectacles that civil engineering—which moves mountains and changes river beds as a matter of course— ever furnished. The towering canyon walls, which not even a mountain goat could have climbed a year ago, are now interlaced with roads that have been blasted and chiseled out of solid rock. At the water’s edge, where there was no landing place even for small boats, great electric shovels and drills have been put to work. On the plateau above, a model town to house the workers has come into existence. An outline of the work which is to be done reveals a job to complex and difficult as to make an ordinary man, not acquainted with the tricks of civil engineers, wonder whether the directors of this project are highly ambitious or simply crazy. To begin with, four great tunnels are being cut through solid rock. Each of these tunnels is to be 56 feet in diameter and will have an average length of about 4,000 feet. The mouths of these tunnels—there are two on each side of the river—are close to the water’'s edge, some distance above the spot where Hoover Dam is to be built. The other ends open at water level some distance below the dam site. HEN these are finished two huge coffer dams will be built just to stop up the river and send all of its water downstream through the tunnels. In this way a segment of the river bed will be left bare—and on that bare stretch the dam itself will be built. Then, when the main dam has been com- pleted, the mouths of the tunnels will be stop- ped up, and a tremendous artificial lake will be formed. Hoover Dam will be approximately 1,180 feet wide, 650 feet high, and 45 feet wide at the top, and will harness the turbulent Colorado River, notoriously addicted to dam- aging floods, for all time. Near the top of this dam intake tunnels will be sunk to connect with the previously-built diversion tunnels, so that excess water from the great lake can be used to provide electric power. That is a sketchy outline of the job—a job Which, to the contracts made with Uncle Sam, is to be completed January 1, 1938. It is when you begin to examine the different drawn by Artist Joe King, is shown above. “worog o ! { steps of the work that the stupendous nature of the job becomes plain. Simply getting started was a real job in itseif. Workmen were floated down the river on rafts, and standing on these rafts they managed to drill out footholds at the base of the perpen- dicular cliffs, When those footholds were large enough, huge electric shovels were floated down stream, landed, and put to work to enlarge the landing spaces. As they made more space, more shovels were brought in. Foot by foot, roads were chiseled out of the cliffs so that motor trucks could come down to the river’s edge. Right now the tunnels are holding the center of the stage. T the face of each tunnel, against the rock wall, a complicated scaffolding as high as the framework of a five-story building 1is erected. On it stand the workmen with their electric drills, honeycombing the face of the rock. Explosives are then inserted and the rock is blasted to bits. In come the electric shovels, each one capable of filling a big truck with two “bites” of the debris, The fragments of rock are cleaned out, the scaffolding is re-erected, and the drilling starts again. In this way the tunnels are being pushed forward at a rate of about 22 feet a day. When completed, the tunnels are to be lined with three feet of concrete. This job is ex- pected to be finished by the first of next year. ‘Then will come one of the most ticklish parts of the entire job—the building of the coffer dams. Frank T. Crowe, superintendent in charge of construction for Six Companies, Inc., the group of contracting syndicates formed to handle the 5 rghzkty feu Ef minute until the dam is finished. These are the main outlines of the job. And yet their recital does not give a clear picture of all the work that has to be done. There are innumerable little incidental jobs— little, that is, by contrast, but highly costly and involved on their own account, in many cases—that must be done in order to make the bigger jobs possible. TObeglnvlth,leComp.nles.mc.,lpm $750,000 building the town of Boulder City. So far they have erected eight dormitories, each of which provides a separate sleeping room for 172 men; 358 cottages, two admin- istration buildings, a huge mess hall, a big recreation center and innumerable warehouses, laundries, garages and so on. A 20-room hos- pital is another item in this job. The Federal Government eventually is going to spend an additional $2,000,000 on this town to provide a set of permanent improvements for the 150 or more men who will be employed there after the dam is in operation. The mouths of two of the great*water diversion tunnels, cut into solid rock. it won't even be junked. It of the $50,000,000 Uncle the dam is withheld until every day that can be the specified time means a sav- the contractors of about $540 in interest. the feverish efforts to make speed. Ligquefied “Gas™ Gaining liquefied petroleum gas industry, barely more than an infant 10 years ago, has spread out until now it is of sizable propor- tions, with threescore manufacturing companies was 28,502,000 gallons, 10,000,000 more than in 1930. The exploitation of the gases, propane, bu- tane and pentane, formerly waste gases to & large extent in the petroleum refining indus- try, in a way gives promise of balancing the development of the natural gasoline industry, in which gasoline is made from the natural gases, Propane is the more readily usable of the liquefied gases, as it vaporizes at normal at- temperatures and will assume & gaseous fornf' even at a temperature as low as minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Butane, on the other hand, needs a little mechanical assistance to make it more readily available. Mixing plants are established to mix air and butane at the proper proportions to make it a free- burning gas. Prize Candy Probed TH! Federal Government is investigating the so-called prize candies which are sold with the lure of a hidden prize in the box to en- courage the purchase by children. One case was found in which the candy manufacturer had imbedded the prizes within the candy, the prizes consisting of small lead rings, lead figures of animals and other such objects. The shipments from the manufacturer involved were seized because it was found that the lead left a small residue in the candy which medical authorities declared was poisonous in the cumulative effect of continued purchase and eating. In addition there was danger to the teeth if the child should bite hard and strike the prize. Another danger to the child was in the possibility that the prize might be drawn into the bronchial tubes and end in a sericus if not fatal illness. A thorough investigation is under way to see that none of the prize-bearing confections have their prizes so placed as to endanger the health of any who eat. Asparagus Beds Long-Lived ASPARAGUS. one of the most important crops of the Eastern Shore, is beginning to take front rank as a truck garden product in many parts of the United States. There are more than a hundred thousand acres of the vegetable grown in the United States now, and half of this amount goes to the market as fresh asparagus. California raises about half of the entire crop of the United States, the greater part of that State’s yield being canned. Belonging to the family of perennials, as- paragus gives a fine cash crop, with fairly little expense in the way of upkeep. A bed well es- tablished will yield crops for 8 or 10 years, although under proper care this time may be increased to 15 to 20 yea It is considered best, however, to rerew the every decade.