The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 30, 1899, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 1899 y?m’/d/ny a Railroad Ohrough a Swamp. Remarkable Engineering Feat o the Lower San Joaquin River Accomplished by the Santa Fe Company to Shorten the Distance Between Stockton and San Francisce BUILDING THE CONCRETE PIER FOR THE DRAWBRIDGE OVER SAN JOAQUIN RIVER. s decided to build road from Stockton the co How General Gran tage of what has been studied out for her purpose. This is the building of for the purpose of reclaiming tide to be used for growing wheat. demand for a means of building quickly and cheaply lad to the con- tion of the strange looking dredgers t can_be seen all along the banks of San Joaquin River. This dredger has been through many phases of develop- ment during the last quarter of a cen- tury, until at the present time it is the achine for railroad building ough swamps. he work done by the dredgers for the roadbed of the Valley road does not vary in the least from that done for the re- clamation of swamp land. This being the ¢ is an easy matter to comprehend that the new railroad is to be merely ee. built on top of an enormous levee. without its But the work has not been ©964660606600006 [ Raised B the Standard of Beauty, ERTAINLY the story is authentic that Pr t Grant once asked me Ic not raise the standard of in the dead letter ¢ ’ sald stant e James yassing throu gly commen t : arance of the cle y inquired if I could not \ emale beauty. rded the matter as a at T would be glad to do to suggestions. one handsome woman € the whole ented pretty girl an ap- to you?' rse I would, I replied, never however, that he was In earn- next day a lovely young girl note from asking me to ful- ferring, how- her vithout was pretty. She was 1d lived on a planta- but wanted a Government ing backed by the Pres- to work in the dead letter “While Grant was on his trip around the world I spent a couple of months with him in Parls evening as we sat talking of the asked him if he re- ainly I do, for I have good cause iber her, he responded cordally. ated that I was satisfied there ust be a story back of his appointment, nd as he was in one of his rare reminis- moods he related the following ex- traordinary experienc “ It was just before the battle of the Wilderness that I mounted my horse and ride. I was full of anxiety, and ; preoccupation went outside of our 1 d found to my dismay that I was being chased. My horse was a good one, and I rode bard until I came to a little, half-con- n, where I dismounted and said . am a Confederate,” he answered proudly. ““Well, sir, I am General Grant. Can you hide me for a little while, as I am | being pursued.” **“How do you know that T won't be- u?" he inquired curiousl Because I trust your face,” I re- plied, and without more ado he seized my horse by the bridle and we went Into a deep ravine back of his home, where a moment later he left me, bidding me to keep perfectly still. ** ‘It was a glorious moonlight night and I could see every object distinctly. About 11 o'clock I heard the bushes crackle and for a moment my heart leaped for fear as my host came cautious- ly up behind me. ‘“*‘*“Have you betrayed me?” I inquired sharpl FREs | tray " he replied almost harshly “the pursuing party has p: is clear and you can army.” ‘ ‘He put me on the right road, and as I jumped into the saddle I grasped ..s hand and tried to thank him. I told him that if I could serve him or his to let me know. “‘I never saw him again, but the day you spoke to me his daughter came to me with a letter from her father, who is very poor, reminding me of my promise. And this,” continued General Grant, ‘was the sole reason I wanted to raise the stand- ard of female beauty in the dead letter office.” ANECDOTES OF KIPLING. Seldom one fells a joke on one’s self; not so, however, with Mr. Kipling, who relates an amusing story at his own ex- pense. During his stay at Wiltshire one summer he met little Dorothy Drew, Mr. Gladstone’s granddaughter, and, being very fond of children, took her in the sed, the coast return to your sy obstacles, for many of the details had to be studied out as the construction pro- ceeded. “The worst part of the work,” sald En- gineer Storey, who has had full charge of the building of the roadbed, “was in making the survey “We began this about two years ago and worked for weeks and weeks among the tules. At certain points the growth s0 high that it was impossible to get line through the tules without first cutting them down. In one place we did this for over two miles, and then found that the route so laid out was imprac- ticable, and we had to make another one. Some of the land was worked over sev- eral times befare we finally discovered a way by which we could uild a railroad track through the swamp without enor- mous expense.” An exami A ition of the finished roadbed PP00000000006000090 0 grounds and told her stories. After a heér and said: have not been not | | | ling mus | W bit, ryving Mr. mother, Kipling.” | “Oh. no, replied | ing me.” smail celebrity, “but he has been weary- Mr. Kipling sent Captain Robley D. Evans of the warship lowa a set of his works and with them these verses: “Zogbaum draws with a pencil And I do things with a pen, But you sit up in a conning tower, Bossing eight hundred men. “Zoghaurf takes care of his business, And I take care of mine, But you take care of ten thousand tons, Sky-shooting through the brine. | “Zogbaum can handle his shadows, And I can handle my style, But you can handle a ten-inch gun To carry seven mile. “To him that hath ‘shall be glven, And that's why these books are sent To the man who has lived more stories Than Zogbaum or I could invent.” At the time he wrote “The Last Chan- | ty” some one asked him how he pro- | nounced it. *“Well,” he replied, “‘the reai- elegant and well-bred people pro- | nounce it ‘Chanty,’ but those who know | what they are talking about call it | Mr. Kipling sold a book to a London publisher at a price that netted the au- | Fleet-street hu of the thing,” ing that, as w morist, who, *“for the fun wrote to the author, sa word, for which he enclosed a shilling postal order. The reply came in due course. Mr. Kipling had kept the shilling postal order and politely returned the one significant word ‘“‘Thanks!” written on a large sheet of writing paper. e e “I told her my soul was wrapped up in her. “What did she say?"” “‘She warned me to be more careful or I'd be making Iove to her before long. Philadelphia North American. “Do_you think bachelors ought to be taxed?” asked some one. “I'm not quite sure yet,” she answered, dreamily. “Give me another week, and maybe I'll be able to land him without | any outside help.”—Chicago Post. fearing that Mr. Kip- | 1 of the child, called to | »w, Dorothy, I hope you | the | thor one shilling a word. The publication | of this fact came under the notice of a | sdom seems to be quoted | PILING UP THE LEVEE TO BE USED AS A ROADBED. This Work Was Done by the Aid of Six Monster Dredgers, Two Parallel Canals Were Cut Through the Country and the Earth From Them Piled Up In the Center. was made last week by a- Sunday Call representative. Engincer Storey was on hand and made a The beginning of the western end of the roadbed through the swamp is a few miles from Brentwood. At this point there Is a slough, across which a bridge has vet to be built. The new roadbed is one of the most ex- traordinary sights of its kind in the world. At present it is merely a big pile of black earth, with a canal on either side. The canals were made by the dredgers, that gouged out the earth and piled it up for the new roadbed. Naturally this pro- duced a channel. “We are going to keep these canals here,” said Engineer Storey, “for two reasons. One is to prevent the tule fires that are sure to rage on hoth sides from jumping across and burning out our track. The other reason is because the canals are navigable and will make it easy for us to get In certain kinds of supplies, such as tles, without unloading them from the schooners till we get them to their destination.” About four miles from the Brentwood end of the roadbed there are two navi- gable rivers w River and Middle ® 4 L 4 L4 ® ® & & P06 Special to The Sunday Call. AST year the world was amused, then perplexed, then astonished at the effort of Frederick A. Knapp, a daring Canadian inventor, to navigate a huge boat which rolled on the sea like a barrel. The in- itial trip of the experimental boat con- vinced a number of capitalists that Mr. Knapp's invention would revolutionize the science of mavigation, and now with thousands of dollars at his command the inventor is. letting contracts for the con- struction of the first Knapp roller b v It will enter into active competition th steam and sail v s of the present type for the world's water traffic. The big eylinder will be finished and launched this summer. The success of the first full-sized roller boat, the initial steps In the building of | which are mow occupying the attention of Mr. Knapp and his assoclates in Chi- - The Roller Boat in Rolling Trim. From a Photograph Taken as She Lay at the §Whart in Chicago. | cago, will mean a complete and sweeping | revolution of all deep water transporta- | tion. If this pioneer roller achieves no | greater speed than that made by the | crude model which has been operated in Toronto Bay the crafts now plowing the inland seas may read their orders to tie | up in permanent quarters, for the carry- ing capacitz of the roller boat 1s tmmense- |1y greater on the same draught than that power required to provel it is far less. To form a correct mental image of the roller hoat, picture a huge barrel or cyl- inder 500 feet long, 96 feet in diameter :nd 24 feet from the hollow core to the outer surface. This is constructed of boller plate so riveted as to be air-tight. It nas an inner, an outer and a middle c¥kin, these tubes being held at proper distances from one another by circular partitions forming air-tight compartments which make the boat unsinkable. Not only is this great barrel the shell of the boat, but it is also its propeller— the wheel which gives the craft its ac- tual traveling capacity. Think of a boat with a paddle-wheel 500 feet broad and 9 feet in diameter! But the term *paddle- wheel” is not strictly applicable in this Lcase, for the roller boat has neither screw, ROLLER BOAT : ‘f"é‘&'@@@’@@@®00@@‘@-@®®<~\@\©©®@@Q@@Q@@@@@O@QOQ@@Q@O@@o | the | | down to the ‘“‘journals” or huge hollow | | at retail prices, he himself would like one | of the prevailing type of vessel, while the | 6 Miles an Hour In Performing the Task River—which the track must cross, Steel drawbridges will be put in at these points and the work will consume nearly all summer. Just beyond the river provision has been made for carrying off the enormous body of water that would cover the coun- try for miles and miles in time of a flood. As it happens, the roadbed is built at right angles across the direction in which the water flows, and would be likely to be washed out unless some provision were made for its escape. i This is accomplished by building a tres- tle about a mile and a half long. The wa- ter will flow through this without doing any damage to the roadbed. Careful cal- culations have been made and it is be- fleved that the trestle will allow seves times the amount of water that is likely to gather in any flood to run off-without the slightest difficulty. At a point about six miles from Brent- wood six dredgers are still at work piling up earth on the roadbed. As the soft mud from the bottom of the canal is piled on to the roadbed it slowly settles and very unevenly. Those parts that sink be- low the desired point have to be built up again. Often the work has to be gone nor paddles. The four-inch T-rails run- | ning from end to end of the outside of the | cylinder. are better described as cogs | Which set Into the water and enable the | roller to roll forward over the sea instead | of merely revolving without progress. The | progressive action of the cylinder is simi- lar to that of the broad-tired wheels of a country traction engine pulling its way up a hill, the cogs with which the tires | are crossed biting into the roadway and | glving foothold and pulling power. Within the tunnel or core of this hollow | cylinder is suspended the boat proper or the portion carrying the passengers, crew, cargo and engines. The cylinder revolv around this inner cradle, the latter always remaining level Only at the points where spider work’” of the cylinder projects steel axles by which the central section of the hoat is suspended does the framework of the roller come in contact with the hanging or non-rotating part of the craft. ESTIMATED To Travel And CARRY 600 Tons of Freight With The Latest Sea-Going Freak Designed to Revolutionize Navigation. THE BIG DREDGER AT WORK. over several times until the required height and strength is obtained. “These dredgers have been working steadily twenty-two hours a day for the past year,” said Engineer Storey. “They lift about four tons of earth each time they are filled, and they will carry about one hundred loads an hour. So you can figure out what an enormous. amount of soil has to be moved in order to get that ile of dirt in condition to lay a railroad track on top of it.”” The Stockton end of the swamp road- bed is at a point on Whisky Slough about four miles from the city. From this point to Brentwood the road is almost in a straight llne. Standing on the highest point it is possible to get a view ‘of the whole length. It can be dimly traced as a black line through the green tule.lands, with here and there a dredger at work showing through the haze. From the end of the swamp roadbed into Stockton is about four miles, over which the grading is nearly all done. At the San Joaquin River a drawbridge is being built. This is a stupendous piece of LR RN The suspended interior is divided iInto three lengths, two long sections separated by a short one. The short central section of the inner cradle contains the engines, one end section the first class and the other the second class passengers. The passage from one to another of these sec- tions is through the hollow ‘journal,” which Is a part of the non-rotating center of the boat. As these steel axles, in a roller boat for ocean service are bored by tunnels ten feet in diameter, it will be seen that they are ample for carrying all the electric lighting cables, telegraph | and telephone wires, heating tubes, etc., and for affording a passage way. The steering Is done by rudder drags at each end, operated from a bridge suspended outside the boat. A knotty problem in the construction of this boat was the application of the power by which the outside cylinder is revolved. This is accomplished by a battery of three engines, having a long upward stroke, the pistons being attached to “cranks” of the big driving shaft. The points on the circle of the shaft at which the pistons apply the power are equidistant from each other, or 120 degrees apart. At each end of the driving shaft is a powerful cog- wheel, fitting into the cogs of the cylin- der’s bearings, or more properly into an internal “spur gear” rigidly connected with the solid bulkhead of the cylinder. Above the suspended cradle of the boat is an arched ceiling hiding from vfew the interior of the revolving cylinder over- head. Light and air are freely admitted at the open ends. Only the ends of the cradle are, of course, in the least exposed to sea and weather, and the fact that the bottom of the suspended section of the boat is high above the reach of the fiercest storm waves is calculated to in- spire in the future passengers of this craft a feeling of complete security. as there will be no swaying or pitching mo- tion, the inventor promises entire exemp- tion from seasickness. Rocking or sway- ing is prevented by the perfect equilib- rium of the suspended body and the great length of the craft, together with the fact work. The piers are of concrets set on plles driven -into the river bottom. The concrete plers are first made in frames and then sunk by means of screws until they set on the piles, which have been sawed off perfectly even. The drawbridge is to be of steel. It is to be of the best construction, like all the other work on the Valley road. “From our depot here in Stockton,” sald Engineer Storey, ‘‘to the foot of Mar- ket street, San Francis by our road is only seventy-two mile: Within a year we will be covering the distance in about two hours, and I think that from the very first we will make it inside of three hours. “From here we run down the river bank, then cross the swamp to Antioch. From there we go toward the south and through a tunnel in the Coast Range, then run parallel to the Southern Pacific to Point Richmond. From here our new boat will cross th y in thirty-five minutes and end the y ything goes well the whistle of our first” engine will be heard at Point Richmond about the 1st of next November. From then on we ex- pect to give the best kind of service and to constantly improve it.” CP0209060000060600000 that it rolls over the water “broadside on,” allows little opportunity for end-to- end -pitching. The problem of the speed which the roller boat will be able to show Is an In- teresting one, certain to provoke a wide range of comment from nautical men and engineers. Regarding this point the in- ventor says: “If the freight boat which we shall put into commission next summer for the or, and grain traffic of the Great Lakee makes no better speed than did my first crude working model It will outclass all competition on the part of the swiftest freighters now on the inland seas. That model was 110 feet long and 22 feet In di- ameter. Loaded to 100 tons displacement she revolved ten and a half times a min- ute on the application of less than twenty horsepower of steam. This gave her a steady speed of six miles an hour. The roller boat for ocean traffic will be £00 feet long and 200 feet in diameter. On the basis of what has already been done with the model In Toronto Bay, operating un- der an insignificant expenditure of power, I think it may be reasonably granted that adequate engines will be able to turn ‘he ocean boat thirteen times a minute. That means a speed of 100 miles an hour!” —_——— Hotel Clerk (suspiclously)—Your bundle has come apart. May I ask what that Guest—That Is a new patent fire escape. I always carry it, s0'in case of fire I can let myself down from the hotel window. ot Clerk (thoughtfully)—I see. Our terms for guests with fire escapes, sir, are in- variably cash in advance. —_———— “‘Borus, in your last novel you spoil the story by raiSing an insurmountable bar- rier between the hero and heroine, who certainly ought to have married each other.” . “T couldn’t help it. Naggus. My wife insisted that I was the hero of the story myself, and she got jealous of the hero- i Tribune. The New “Roller Boat” as It Will Look at Sea.