Professional Memoirs, Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large, Volume 2 |
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abutment Army artillery attack barge Battalion boat bridge built caisson Canal carried cement cent channel Chief of Engineers cofferdam Colonel Tretyakov command commerce Company completed connection considerable construction Corps of Engineers cost cubic cylinder defense depth distance dredge drill excavation feet field Fifth Regiment fire fortifications front gates German regulations grade haul inches Japanese June kaoliang kilometers Lakes length load lock lower machine Manchuria material meters miles military Mississippi River Monongahela River navigation necessary officers Ohio Ohio River operation Panama Canal piles Pinar del Rio pipe plant plate Port Arthur position pounds protection pump Quebec Bridge rail railroad railway redoubt reinforced concrete river and harbor River Pool rock Russian sand side slope steam steel stone supporting point surface timber tion traffic transportation trenches Tretyakov troops tubes United valves Visokaya Hill wagon wall weight wire yards
Popular passages
Page 235 - Precipitation controls fprestation, but forestation has little or no effect upon precipitation. (3) Any local modification of temperature and humidity caused by the presence or absence of forest covering, the buildings of villages and cities, etc., could not extend upward more than a few hundred feet, and in this stratum of air saturation rarely occurs, even during rainfall, whereas precipitation is the result of conditions that exist at such altitudes as not to be controlled or affected by the small...
Page 261 - ... said report shall include the probable cost of such improvement with each of the depths named, the probable cost of maintenance, and the present and prospective commerce of said river, upstream as well as downstream, having regard to both local and through traffic. They shall also report whether, in their opinion, such improvement should be made, and whether other plans of improvement could be devised under which the probable demands of traffic, present and prospective, could be provided for...
Page 261 - Provided, That every report submitted to Congress in pursuance of this section, in addition to full information regarding the present and prospective commercial importance of the project covered by the report and the benefit to commerce likely to result from any proposed plan of improvement, shall also contain such data as it may be practicable...
Page 262 - Engineers may be necessary, all reports upon examinations and surveys provided for by Congress, and all projects or changes in projects for works of river and harbor improvement heretofore or hereafter provided for.
Page 262 - In this opinion I heartily concur. The present methods not only fail to give us inland navigation, but they are injurious to the army as well. What is virtually a permanent detail of the corps of engineers to civilian duty necessarily impairs the efficiency of our military establishment. The military engineers have undoubtedly done efficient work in actual construction, but they are necessarily unsuited by their training and traditions to take the broad view...
Page 246 - ... (5) Floods are caused by excessive precipitation, and the source of the precipitation over the central and eastern portions of the United States is the vapor borne by the warm southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico and the adjacent ocean into the interior of the country, but little from the Pacific Ocean crossing the Rocky Mountains.
Page 260 - Provided, That no preliminary examination, survey, project, or estimate for new works other than those designated in this or some prior act or joint resolution shall be made: Provided further, That after the regular or formal reports made as required by law on any examination, survey, project, or work under way or proposed are submitted...
Page 265 - ... amount of freight which would probably take the river channel, this amount being assumed by the Board to be about 500,000 tons. In this estimate no account is taken of the amount to be paid for damages to existing water power, nor of the cost to some one for the modification of the existing bridges. Owing to the large cost as compared with the probable benefits. and to the insufficient depth of water below Hartford, the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors concludes that the proposed improvement...
Page 247 - Tamarisk bushes stand upon mounds from 5 to 60 feet high, a sure sign of the lowering of the level of ground water; poplar forests which once extended for scores of miles now form wastes of branchless dead trunks like gaunt gray skeletons; and beds of dead reeds cover hundreds of square miles. It has often been asserted that the destruction of forest* has been the cause of the diminution of rainfall.
Page 245 - Bureau and a member of the National Academy of Science. He says: It is a pity that the errors of past centuries should still continue to be disseminated long after scientific research has overthrown them. It is easy to start false theories and to believe them, because they are generally simple and plausible, but long years of work are necessary before we get at the secrets of nature. In this day and generation, the idea that forests either increase or diminish the quantity of rain that falls from...