REPORT
ON THE
IMPROVEMENT OF THE KANAWHA
AND INCIDENTALLY OF TIIE
OHIO RIVER,
BY MEANS OF ARTIFICIAL LAKES.
BY
CHARLES EL LET, JR.,
CIVIL ENGINEER.
PHILADELPHIA:
COLLINS, PRINTER, No. 705 LODGE ALLEY.
1858.
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Washington, D. C.
October 20, 1858.
Col. THOMAS II. ELLIS,
President of the James River and Kanawha Company.
Dear Sir:
I submit herewith my Report on the Improvement
of the Navigation of the Kanawha River, by means of
reservoirs, and respectfully recommend that plan for
adoption by your Company, for reasons which are herein
fully set forth.
I have not deemed it advisable, if proper, in dis¬
cussing this question, to criticize the views of any of my
predecessors, to whom the problem of improving this
river has been, from time to time, committed for solu¬
tion. I -have therefore passed by, in succession, the
various recommendations of Mr. Baldwin, in 1817; of
Messrs. Moore and Briggs, in 1819; of Judge Wright,
in 1838; my own views of that same year; those of my
skilful and valued friend, Mr. Fisk, of 1854; and those,
also, of your present Chief Engineer, Mr. Lorraine,
4
without comment. You have the well-considered plans
of all these experienced parties now before you. With
the results of their study of this subject, you will com¬
pare the conclusions which I here submit; and I trust
that your decision will be right.
Be pleased to attribute any irregularities or needless
repetitions in this Report to the circumstances under
which it was prepared—the first part passing through
the press before the last was written.
Respectfully and truly yours,
CHARLES ELLET, Jr.,
Civil Engineer.
V
NOTE.
The following report is confined to the discussion of but one of the
numerous reservoir sites explored and partly surveyed under the direc¬
tion of the writer, during the past season. The wide exteut of terri¬
tory which he was obliged personally to traverse, much of which is
almost a wilderness, rendered it impracticable, without the aid of a
very strong force, to carry his instrumental researches as far as he
would have wished to do, and complete them in time to submit the
results to the Board prior to the meeting of the Stockholders, to be
held in Richmond in October.
He deemed it most advisable, therefore, to direct his attention to
the completion of the survey of one available site, and to make every
effort to lay his report of the facts appertaining to that one before the
Board for their timely consideration.
If the Company should be satisfied with the general plan which he
recommends, and direct that measures be taken to put it in execution,
then he would advise an extension of the surveys in other directions,
which he will indicate, before positive contracts are made for the work,
or for the purchase of the property which may be inundated.
He trusts that the facts now submitted will be found sufficient to
enable the Stockholders to decide whether the plan of improving the
navigation of the Kanawha River by the aid of artificial lakes,
is or is not the one most worthy of their adoption.
REPORT
ON THE
IMPROVEMENT OF THE GREAT KANAWHA RIVER.
The Great Kanawha is a tributary of the Ohio River,
along which its copious waters pass on their way to the
Gulf of Mexico. The commerce of the Great Kanawha,
like its waters, flows also down the Ohio, and finds a
market in the numerous and populous cities along the
borders of the Ohio.
The physical characteristics of the two rivers are also
very similar. Both are navigable when both are well
supplied with water. The navigation fails alike on both
when the supply of water fails.
It is impossible, therefore, to remedy the defects of
the navigation of the Kanawha, so as to make it really
valuable as a commercial channel, without, at the same
time, correcting the like defects, proceeding from the
same cause, in that of the Ohio.
If we confine our efforts to the improvement of the
Kanawha, as has been the past policy of the company,
we must confine its trade, during the period of low water
in the Ohio, to the markets on its own banks. We can
8
PLAN OF IMPROVING THE OHIO.
gain nothing by sending the produce of the Kanawha
Valley into the dried-up channel of the Ohio.
I propose, therefore, to transcend my precise instruc¬
tions so far as to report, to some extent, on the improve¬
ment of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers together, as two
streams commercially, and physically, and inseparably
connected, and between which there is, and must always
be, a mutual and reciprocal dependence.
The absence of precise data prevents me from extend¬
ing these views also to the navigable tributaries of the
Kanawha itself, between which, and both the Ohio and
Kanawha, there is a similar reciprocal dependence.
PLAN OF IMPROVING THE OHIO.
I have frequently proposed, as the proper mode of
improving the Ohio River, the formation of ample reser¬
voirs, or artificial lakes, on its tributaries, in which an
adequate supply of water should be collected in periods
of abundance, and from which it should be drawn in
times of scarcity. This suggestion was made to meet
the actual difficulties of the problem.
The Ohio River descends, from its source to its mouth,
almost continuously along a bed of nearly uniform and
very gentle slope, in which its current flows slowly, and
meets with but occasional, and those generally slight,
obstructions. In the winter and spring months the
supply of water is excessive, and often so great that the
banks are submerged, and the lower portions of the
river towns suffer serious damage from its inundations.
plan of improving tiie ohio.
9
In the latter part of summer, and the early part of
autumn, the period of excessive rains is followed by
excessive droughts; when the channel of the river ceases
to receive water enough to float its commerce. The
navigation, however, continues to be good as long as the
supply of water is abundant; and it only begins to fail
as the supply of water diminishes.
Starting with this fact, I proposed, many years ago,
to restore the failing navigation of the river, by supply¬
ing the only thing that was needed to perfect it—Water.
The question which is now submitted to me is, to
decide from actual survey and measurements, whether
this same plan of improvement may not be equally
applicable 'to the great Kanawha, of which, like its
greater recipient, the navigation is also good when the
supply of water is abundant, and only becomes danger¬
ous and difficult as that supply diminishes.
I reported to the President at an early day, after a
thorough inspection of the channel of the river, and
the physical formation of some of its tributaries, that
this plan, with some modifications, rendered necessary
by peculiar circumstances, and especially by the limited
financial resources of the Company, was applicable to
that river; and could be so applied to it as not only to
improve the navigation of the Kanawha, but also, I
thought, greatly to benefit that of the Ohio itself below
the mouth of the Kanawha.
2
10
DESCRIPTION OF THE KANAWHA.
DESCRIPTION OF THE KANAWHA.
The Great Kanawha is formed from the united waters
of New River, the Greenbrier and Gauley River, and
assumes its name at the point of junction of the Gauley
with New River. This point is 96 miles above the
mouth of the river. Its elevation, at low water, is 137
feet above the surface of the Ohio at low water, and,
according to my survey of 1838, the Ohio, at the mouth
of the Kanawha, is 522 feet above tide.
The total area of the region drained by the Kanawha,
may be estimated at 10,500 square miles.
The average width of the river at ordinary low water,
obtained from many measurements, is 590 feet.
For the first six and a half miles below the mouth
of the Gauley, which is regarded as the head of the
Kanawha, the river is not navigable in any stage of
the water—encountering, in that space, the Great
Falls, of which the perpendicular descent is about
20 feet, and two long and rapid shoals, and overcom¬
ing an aggregate elevation of 51 feet—or 8 feet per
mile.
The improvements of the navigation of this river are
intended to commence in the pool below the foot of
Loop Creek Shoal, the highest point to which steam¬
boats can ascend in good water. The distance from this,
the proposed head of navigation, to the mouth of the
river, is 871 miles. The fall of the river at low water
in that distance is 86 feet.
DESCRIPTION OF THE KANAWHA.
11
This fall may be distributed as follows:—
From the foot of Loop Creek Shoal to Charleston,
the distance is 31 f miles, and the descent 38 feet.
From Charleston to the Ohio, the distance is 571 miles,
and the descent is 47 feet.
In the upper space of 31 f miles the fall is at the
average rate of 1T2^ feet per mile.
In the lower space of 57^ miles, below Charleston,
the descent is at the rate of feet per mile.
These facts and the following are derived from my
report of 1838.
The fall of the river is distributed along from space
to space in shoals and ripples and intervening pools.
The depth of these pools in extreme low water is gene¬
rally from three feet to seven or eight feet, and there
are but few obstructions to be found in them, and these
of a character so easily removed that they will not be
further noticed in this report.
The real impediments to the navigation consist of the
shoals, which are composed of loose stones and gravel
thrown into the sti'eam by its affluents, or caused to
lodge there by the interruptions of its own current, pro¬
duced by the water discharged by its affluents.
These shoals are natural dams running across the
river and separating one pool from another.*
* For the length and descent of each shoal and pool, see Note A.
For complete working plans of the shoals, reference must be made to
the elaborate maps and field books of Mr. John A. Byers, Civil
Engineer, illustrating the survey of the river made by him under the
direction of the present Chief Engineer of the Company, Mr. Lorraine.
12 THE KANAWHA RIVEK IMPROVEMENT.
Above and below the shoals, the navigation is always
good. On and along the shoals, it is more or less im¬
perfect.
The problem is, now, so to improve this navigation
that both ascending and descending boats may pass
these shoals safely and conveniently. There is always
water enough for steamboat navigation in the pools;
but the depth on the shoals is inadequate in the sum¬
mer months; and the Avidth and often the direction both,
of the natural and artificial channels through them are
such, that they cannot be safely traversed by large coal-
boats even when the supply of water would be sufficient
for convenient passage through more direct and Avider
channels.
THE OBJECT OF THE KANAWHA RIVER IMPROVEMENT.
The great motive for improving the navigation of the
KanaAvha is to afford a certain, regular, and reliable
outlet for the coal, salt, and other heavy products of the
valley to the markets on the Ohio. This outlet is noAV,
owing to the peculiar condition of the channel, mainly
natural but partly artificial, only available for boats of
heavy burthen, such as colliers draAving 5-|- or 6 feet, in
very high water, and for boats of light burthen, draAving
3 feet or less, in very low Avater. In consequence of
the shoals, and the indirect and imperfect channels
through them, the river is not safely navigable for any¬
thing but steamboats and flats of light draught during
the intermediate and best stages of the Avater.
THE KANAWHA RIVER IMPROVEMENT. 13
The aim of the Company has for many years been
directed to the means of overcoming these impediments
by locks and dams, by wing dams, and by sluices, and
combinations of these various artifices, so that boats
might be able to float down the river to the Ohio—as
though there were a market for these mineral products
on the Ohio at the mouth of the Kanawha. But there
is, in fact, no such market there; and, as I have already
stated, no market can be reached when the contemplated
improvement has been made, until the Ohio River itself
has .been rendered navigable by rains or by art.
If, therefore, the Company had succeeded in its
utmost efforts, and had perfected the Kanawha improve¬
ment, as they have contemplated, their expectations, I
think, would scarcely have been realized. They could
have delivered their commerce at the mouth of the
Kanawha in light barges, it is true; but not at the
places where it is wanted and whither it is destined—at
the wharves of the great cities along the Ohio.
I think, therefore, that the universal intelligence of
the public will sustain me when I express the opinion
that, to make the improvement of the Kanawha really
available for permanent and constant navigation, the
Ohio River must be made equally available below the
mouth of the Kanawha, so that the loaded coal-boats
floating out of the Kanawha may be permitted to con¬
tinue on their course without hindrance down the Ohio.
It has been proposed to secure a depth of 3 2 feet at
low water on the shoals of the Kanawha—because the
supply of water actually furnished by the river is
14 TIIE KANAAVIIA KIVER IMPROVEMENT.
deemed only sufficient to maintain that depth in chan¬
nels of the necessary slope and adequate width. But,
I think that all practical men will concur with me
again, when I say that 3£ feet is not a sufficient depth
for the economical transportation of coal. It is the won¬
derfully rich coal mines of this valley that are to sustain
the improvement when made; and coal, I fear, cannot
be profitably mined on a large scale, unless the means
of shipment are safe, ample, constant, and reliable.
Coal is too bulky a commodity to be stored or unneces¬
sarily rehandled. The profits on it are too small to
permit it to remain for weeks in loaded and leaking
boats, kept clear of water at large expense, while wait¬
ing for rains and consequent floods to float it away from
the mouth of the Kanawha.
The object of this improvement is, or ought to be, to
enable the miner and producer to ship his trade regu¬
larly and safely in boats of heavy burthen, from his
landing on the Kanawha to the markets which he aims
to supply on the Ohio now, and, ultimately, on the Mis¬
sissippi.
This being the object, the plan of the improvement
must be so contrived as to fulfil it. But this condi¬
tion cannot be satisfied by a navigation which for some
months in every year will only permit boats drawing
three feet clear to descend the Kanawha, to be stopped
at its mouth until the Ohio is swollen by rains. The
coal trade of the Kanawha Valley, I must repeat, can¬
not be made profitable while it is left dependent on the
weather.
PROPOSED PLAN OF THE
IMPROVEMENT.
15
PROPOSED PLAN OF THE IMPROVEMENT.
The navigation of the Kanawha, as I have stated, is
obstructed by shoals which run entirely across the river.
The scanty supply of water afforded by the channel, is
allowed to spread freely over these shoals from shore to
shore; though there are certain narrow and indirect
channels through them, which have been made by the
current itself, or by art, in which the pilots find more
water and fewer obstructions than elsewhere. But even
where artificial channels have been made, as they have
sometimes been at considerable expense, they are too
narrow or too crooked for the boats now in use, and are
not supplied by all the water, limited as the quantity is,
which the river actually furnishes.
Thus, in Tyler Shoal, through which an artificial
canal about 4000 feet long, with a fall of 4 feet, has
been cut, I found the actual discharge of water but 294
feet per second, at a time when the total contribution
of the river was over 1100 cubic feet. About three-
fourths of the actual supply of water—sometimes less
and probably sometimes more—is there wasted.
My first proposition, then, based upon these facts, is,
thoroughly to prepare the river hp cutting good and capa¬
cious channels through all the shoals, in the line of the
actual current, as the water runs when the river is in a
fair navigable condition—and turning all the low water
discharge of the river into these channels.
The width of these cuts, when the water in them is
1(> PROPOSED PLAN OF TIIE IMPROVEMENT.
4 feet deep, will not be less than 104 feet at top, and
80 feet at the bottom—sufficient to allow a steamboat
of adequate size to pass through them with a large coal
barge in tow on each side.
We will thus, by merely concentrating the actual
supply of water within an appropriate channel, obtain
at the outset, and for a very moderate cost, a depth of
three feet or more in common low water, in all the
channels below Charleston, and for at least 13, and
probably 17 miles above that place. To obtain an equal
depth from the natural discharge of the river, still higher
up, the width of some of the channels must be reduced,
as will be hereafter shown.
But this depth, though greater than can be found in
the Ohio, in low water, is not sufficient; and as it can
be easily and permanently increased to four feet, I pro¬
pose, as the next step, to let into the river, from ample
stores provided for the purpose in artificial lakes, a suffi¬
cient additional volume of water to increase the depth in
the channels thus opened, to four feet, and maintain it at
four feet whenever the natural discharge of the river is
inadequate to produce a depth of four feet.
The cost of the improvement carried out to this
extent, would be very small. But for reasons already
set forth, this would be insufficient. It would suffice
only to produce a good steamboat navigation along the
Kanawha, and to permit the convenient and uninter¬
rupted return of the empty coal and salt boats. But
the proper development of the trade of this valley, and
PROPOSED PLAN OF THE IMPROVEMENT. 17
the productiveness of the proposed improvement, it is
to be borne in mind, must spring from the coal trade.
To enable well loaded coal boats to descend the river
with regularity and certainty, we must secure a depth
of not less than six feet at all seasons of the year—if
not all the time, as would be preferable, at least at stated
periods, occurring frequently enough to satisfy the actual
necessities of the trade.
To accomplish this purpose, I propose to secure water
enough in artificial reservoirs, on the tributaries of the
Kanawha, to maintain a depth of 4 feet permanently in
the channels; and then, by greater discharges of this
reserved water, to produce a flood of two feet, on top of
the permanent depth of 4 feet, once in every seven or every
ten days, so that fleets of colliers drawing 5£ feet of
water, may be dispatched that often down the Kanawha.
But, I have already set forth the fact, that the coal
markets sought by the collier, are the great cities down
the Ohio River; and I am compelled, therefore, to
satisfy the further condition—that these floods shall be of
such volume, height, and duration, that the coal boats
which they bear to the mouth of the Kanawha may con¬
tinue to float down the Ohio upon them.
This is the task which I have set out to accomplish
as the first and indispensable condition precedent to the
profitable working of the great coal measures of the
Kanawha Valley.
It is to be observed, however, that this is not proposed
as the ultimate improvement of that river, or of its
great recipient, the unrivalled Ohio. It is suggested
3
IK PROPOSED PLAN OF THE IMPROVEMENT.
only as the first step in a system designed to be pro¬
gressive—to go on from year to year, from age to age,
without loss, and without the necessity of undoing here¬
after what we may do now, until all the waters of the
river are applied to some useful purpose, where they are
arrested, and until the navigation of the Kanawha and
Ohio is made permanently available for all their trade,
and brought to the highest possible state of uninterrupted
improvement.
This is to be accomplished by the gradual addition of
reservoirs, until the aggregate quantity of water col¬
lected will be sufficient for the full supply of the future
commerce of the river.
The present problem, however, is only to provide for
the wants of the present limited trade, or that imme¬
diately anticipated, in such a form that the work we do
now may be gradually extended as the population and
wealth of the valley increase, and by such a plan as
may not exceed the limited resources of the company.
I expect to demonstrate that the cost of doing all I
now contemplate—affording a permanent depth at all
times of 4 feet in the Kanawha, and a depth of 6 feet
as often as one day in the week, along that river, and
down the Ohio to Cincinnati—will not exceed the sums
you have always expected to expend in procuring a
doubtful depth of 3£ feet along the Kanawha alone;
and will be accomplished without the necessity of
placing any obstructions in the river where the naviga¬
tion is now good.
These first results I propose to attain by the construe-
THE RESERVOIR PLAN.
19
tion of a single reservoir, on one of the small tributaries
of the river, at a site where a dam of moderate height
will convert a large natural meadow or swamp into a
considerable mountain lake.
I trust that it will not be deemed out of place to
intimate here, that if I am successful in demonstrating,
to the satisfaction of the company, that the results which
I promise may be realized, this first earnest of success
will be accepted as some compensation for the ridicule
of the public, and the sneers of many of my professional
brethren, which have been my chief reward during the
nine years I have steadily pressed upon the country the
claims of this great and most valuable system of river
improvement.
THE RESERVOIR PLAN.
The valuable results which are promised by the appli¬
cation of artificial reservoirs to the improvement of the
navigation of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, will justify
a brief history of that proposition.
When I first suggested this system of improvement
and control for the Mississippi and its tributaries, in
1849, it was treated as chimerical by a large part of the
public; it was looked on with doubt and distrust by
many members of my own profession; and it was set
aside, civilly but contemptuously, by the War Depart¬
ment, as in conflict with supposed deductions from
French and Italian authorities.
Even five or six years after the promulgation of my
20
the reservoir plan.
plan, and after it had been accepted as eminently valua¬
ble and practicable by several of the most prominent of
my professional cotemporaries, and had been extensively
reviewed and criticized both at home and in England, it
was again noticed in the Annates des Ponts et Chaussees,
the authoritative medium of the once Royal and now
Imperial School of French Engineers, and treated by
the professional critic there as a vast and gigantic under¬
taking, seriously proposed in youthful America, and
before which the States of that rich and powerful
country might not long recoil; but which "would be
regarded as chimerical in our old Europe."*
But useful truth penetrates the world rapidly in this
age of practical thought.
Only two years after the equivocal review of my work
in the Journal of the Imperial School, the Emperor of
France, whose sagacious and eminently practical mind
was then, for the first, turned to the problem of con¬
trolling rivers, by the losses of his subjects consequent
on recent inundations, issued a paper from his own pen,
in which he announced the purpose of ordering a survey
of nearly all the rivers of his Empire, with a view to
the construction of a system of reservoirs to receive
their floods, and prevent future inundations; and in a
subsequent speech from the throne declared that it would
thenceforth be the proud objects of his government " to
* " Semblerait, dans notre vieille Europe, une ceuvre chimerique et de
beaucoup au-dessus des forces et des ressources de l'art de l'ingenieur."
" Chimerical" is the word still commonly applied to my plan in this
country. I take pleasure in recording it.
THE RESERVOIR PLAN.
21
suppress revolutions and make the rivers of his Empire
keep in their beds."
His Majesty's promise scarcely fell short of the lan¬
guage which I had ventured to hold some seven years
before, and which has been made the subject of much
witty and flippant criticism, viz., " that it is in the
power of man to control all the waters of the Missis¬
sippi and Missouri, and compel them to flow forever free
from the hurtful effects of floods and droughts."*
In support of his imperial pmjet of controlling the
floods of the rivers of Fi*ance, the Emperor Napoleon
cites from the records of the town of Eoanne, on the
upper Loire, a passage which shows that a certain artifi¬
cial contraction of the water way of that stream, known
as the Digue de Pinay, was made expressly, in 1711, for
the purpose of partially obstructing the passage of the
water, and by thus retarding the progress of the floods,
protecting the town below from inundation. The Em¬
peror regards the effect of that obstruction as, to some
extent, analogous to the control which might be exer¬
cised by reservoirs. And such is doubtless the fact; for,
immediately above the Digue de Pinay is a wide extent
of level country, over which the obstructed waters find
room to spread while passing off less rapidly through
the contracted channel below.
Almost simultaneously with the promulgation of the
views of the Emperor of France on this subject, a work
was published by Lieut. Col. Arthur Cotton, then Chief
* See ray work on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, pp. 303-323.
22
the reservoir plan.
Engineer of the Madras Presidency, on the improvement
of the navigation of the Godavery and other of the great
rivers of India, by the plan of reservoirs.
I am indebted to Col. Cotton for a straightforward and
soldier-like acknowledgment of his obligations to my
work, for the suggestion of this plan. See Note B.
More recently, this discussion has extended to Swit¬
zerland, whence I have received, from the author, the
records of observations going to show the practicability
of controlling the floods of the Arve, one of the principal
tributaries of the Bhone, by means of reservoirs.
Indeed, the evidence reaches me from many quarters
of the good progress which this valuable and practical
idea is making, and of the revolution which it is about
to produce in the methods of improving the navigation
of many of the great rivers of the world.
Though the idea, when promulgated and its feasibility
demonstrated by me, was entirely original, it is proper to
say that it seems to have been an ancient thought. It
has been shown that the practicability of controlling the
floods of rivers was at least believed by the ancient
Egyptians, since some 3000 years ago, King Moeris is
said to have constructed a lake, or applied a natural
lake, to receive a portion of the overflows of the Nile.
It has also been ascertained that the illustrious Tel¬
ford, the first professional authority of his day in
England, whose great works and character entitled him
to the respect and confidence of his countrymen while
living, and to the last and highest reward an English¬
man can hope to receive—a tomb in Westminster Abbey
the reservoir plan.
23
when dead—proposed nearly 60 years ago to control the
floods and improve the navigation of the river Severn,
by means of reservoirs designed to hold back the
surplus water in times of excess, and from which it
could be drawn in times of scarcity. But this simple
idea, even for that little river, was in advance of the
age, although at that time small reservoirs, each ade¬
quate to the control of some small stream, had been,
some of them at least, more than a century in use.
In my original essay on this subject, I collected and
recorded all the facts then known to me which I thought
militated in support of the practicability of my plan,
and would offer encouragement to that peculiar class of
readers who are prone to rely more on precedent than
demonstration.
Among the illustrations there cited was the fact that
the Lehigh Navigation Company, in 1819, while yet
very young and very poor, had managed to float their
coal-boats, or " arks," as they were there called, down
the Lehigh by drawing water from the small pools
formed by their low dams, and thus producing occasional
short and rapid floods. The Lehigh River, where this
expedient was temporarily adopted, has an average fall
of about 8 feet per mile.
The proposition to use, and even the practice of using,
the waters of natural lakes to maintain the navigation of
the rivers which form their outlets, by draining off a
portion of the lake in times of drought, is probably as
ancient as navigation itself. An expedient, so easy to
be accomplished, and so simple and certain in its opera-
21
THE RESERVOIR PLAN.
tion, could not fail to be resorted to in all civilized
countries where commerce possessed any value.
The proposition to drain off a sufficient body of water
from Lake Michigan to feed the Illinois River—a prac¬
ticable though a very costly operation—is, I believe,
about as old as the State itself.
The raftsmen of Maine, and also of Minnesota, I am
told, have for many years sent down their lumber
through streams forming the outlets of lakes, by dam¬
ming up the water temporarily, and drawing it off when
it was needed to float their rafts.
I have seen it stated, also, that General Sullivan
resorted to the plan of creating a swell in the East
Branch of the Susquehanna, during the American Revo¬
lution, by drawing water from Otsego Lake; and by
that expedient contrived to release his division from a
difficult position, and send his baggage and stores down
the river on temporary rafts.
Very recently, two European engineers have gained
some credit by similar propositions—the one, M. Lom-
bardini, by using Lake Como, and the other, M. Vallee,
by suggesting the use of Lake Leman, for this object.
The difficulty which I have so long encountered, has
been to satisfy the public mind, and I am sorry to say,
even that of a portion of my own profession, that this
object, so easily effected on a small scale, and where
there are natural lakes to drain, can be just as well ac¬
complished by the judicious construction of artificial
lakes, which will often be better adapted to the purpose
than even natural lakes. And, also, to demonstrate that
the meadow reservoir.
25
what has been proposed, and often done, on a very small
scale—viz., to control the floods of small streams, and
feed canals with the arrested waters, can be also accom¬
plished on a very large scale; to make the fact apparent
that if a small reservoir can hold all the water dis¬
charged by a small stream, larger reservoirs, multiplied
in number, may be found to hold the floods of the Ohio,
the Mississippi, and the Missouri.
I have never until now, when the practical intelligence
of the James River and Kanawha Company has removed
the impediment, been in a position to establish the prac¬
ticability of the great system of improvement which I
have projected, by direct surveys and irresistible proofs.
the meadow reservoir.
Under the authority conferred on me by the Company,
during the past summer I have directed the surveys of
four reservoir sites—not all those which I had selected
as the best and most eligible, but in the order in which
I found and examined them, or in which it was conve¬
nient to approach them, and pass from one to the other
in the difficult and retired region in which the parties
were required to operate. These surveys are just com¬
pleted, and will be made the subject of a brief continua¬
tion of this report.
For want of time, my present demonstrations will be
drawn from what I shall call the Meadow Reservoir,
the only one for which the results of the survey have
yet been worked out in detail. (See Note H.)
2() THE MEADOW RESERVOIR.
.f
This reservoir has been surveyed by Mr. Harry Tay¬
lor, as chief of the party, zealously assisted by Mr. J.
J. Clarke. I acknowledge my obligations to those gen¬
tlemen for their indefatigable and intelligent efforts to
complete their laborious duties in the brief space I was
able to allow them.
The site of this reservoir is somewhat remarkable.
To comprehend its position, the reader will please refer
to the annexed skeleton map of the Great Kanawha
and its principal tributaries.
Tracing the Greenbrier River from its northern
sources, southwardly to the mouth of Howard's Creek,
where it trends to the west; thence westwardly to New
River; then descending New River northwardly to its
confluence with the Gauley, and tracing the Gauley
eastwardly to its sources, we shall have circled round a
great extent of wild and mountainous territory, and
have ended nearly where we set out.
Almost the entire area inclosed within the valleys of
the streams we will thus have traced, is an elevated
region, of which a large portion is composed of high
and well-known mountains.
Within the space inclosed by several of these moun¬
tains, viz., the Big Sewell, Little Sewell, Laurel Moun¬
tain, Meadow Mountain, the Cold Knob, Keeney's
Knob, &c., are found the " meadows" of Meadow River,
one of the principal tributaries of the Gauley.
These " meadows" are extensive glades, through
which flow the waters of numerous streams which
descend from the surrounding mountains; and which,
passing through portions of the meadows, one by one
9 HIT LI HI HAP
SHOWINCr THE POSITION'S
GaHipolis
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EIlAVil Rl¥llt
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Ba^ksnest
lp1°
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Snip Sp.
fewiebi
^stine
Sidp.Sps
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Union
®CH.
Fern Sp.
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Maiden
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^hland
THE MEADOW RESERVOIR.
27
unite, and form by their union the Meadow River—
though that name is borne also by one of the smaller
streams which flow into and compose the actual river.
A few miles below the confluence of all these tributa¬
ries, two of the mountains which bound the meadows—
Big Sewell and Laurel Mountain—approach each other,
leaving a narrow passage, not properly a gorge, between
them, through which the river flows on its way towards
the Kanawha.
These extensive meadows present the appearance of
the bottom of an exhausted lake. They are as level as
a graded lawn—so level, indeed, that it is found difficult
and expensive to drain them, and fit them for cultiva¬
tion. The average inclination of the valley in the first
space of 9 miles above the dam—below what is recog¬
nized as properly The Meadows—is only about a foot and
a half per mile; in the next space of five miles, passing
through the widest part of the Meadows, and extending
from Big Clear Creek to the Kanawha Turnpike, there
is scarcely any descent. It is almost a level plane.
The width of these glades is extremely irregular, in
some places not over 500 yards, and in others spreading
out to a mile and a half, and even two miles.
The shores of the proposed lake are indented by
numerous bays or inlets, inclosed in some places be¬
tween the mountains, and high hills, and sometimes
between promontories which project into the meadows
from the surrounding high lands.
The soil is in some parts rich, but frequently cold and
wet, subject to be overflowed, and difficult to drain and
28
TI1E MEADOW RESERVOIR.
improve. It is covered generally by a dense growth of
hazel and alder bushes, and in places with rank weeds,
often entangled with wild vines, forming a jungle diffi¬
cult enough to penetrate.
I propose to convert this entire area into an artificial
lake, by forming a mound of earth, or a stone dam,
across its outlet. This dam will be 68 feet high from
the low water surface of the river to the bottom of the
waste for the discharge of the surplus water.
The length of the mound will be 140 feet at bottom,
where the banks of the river draw near together, and 875
feet at the surface of the lake—68 feet above the river.
The length of the lake thus formed will be 21 T% miles.
It will cover an area of 10,800 acres or 16T97 square
miles. The number of acres which are under cultiva¬
tion will be computed, and stated in Note G, at the end
of this Report.
The mean available depth of the lake, found by divid¬
ing its available contents in cubic feet by its superficial
area, in square feet, is 221 feet.
The surface of this lake will be elevated 2548 feet
above the level of the tides, and 223 feet above the
natural summit of the Alleghany Mountain, where it is
tunnelled for the Covington and Ohio Railroad. (See
Note C.)
This great basin will hold no less than 13,587,815,000
cubic feet of water. It will receive the drainage from
209 f0- square miles of territory, the whole of which,
exclusive of the meadows which will form the bottom of
the lake, is composed of steep, and, to a considerable
THE MEADOW RESERVOIR.
29
extent, very elevated mountains, from the slopes of
which the rains and melted snows will descend rapidly
into the reservoir.
No portion of this area of drainage, or water-shed, is
a plane surface. It is all hill and mountain summits or
mountain sides. The water cannot rest there to be
slowly absorbed, and slowly evaporated, but must run
off rapidly into the lake at the foot of the slopes. We
may, consequently, expect to realize here the highest
ratio of available water to the rain-fall that has ever
been obtained.
We may expect, also, to realize a greater average
rain-fall for each unit of surface, than is due to the
latitude and the climate. The mountains which sur¬
round this lake are all much higher than the Alleghany,
and must break the clouds and condense a greater por¬
tion of their burthen of rain than lower lands.
I shall not, however, in my estimate of the available
supply of water, exceed the limit of 37 inches for the
rain-fall, nor the average of 65 per cent, of the downfall
for the drainage, which were obtained in the surveys of
the Anthony's Creek reservoir. With these limits for
our data, we shall obtain for the value of the available
drainage,
24xf o inches.
I shall reject the fraction, and assume 24 inches for
the average depth of available drainage.
There are 27,878,400 square feet in a square mile.
The amount of water therefore which will be received
30
TIIE MEADOW RESERVOIR.
into this lake from each square mile of the territory
drained, will be
27,878,400 x 2 = 55,756,800 cubic feet.
The area of the district, which will shed its waters towards and into
this lake, has heen ascertained to be . . 209.2 square miles.
Assuming, next, that the evaporation from the
lake is equal to the rain-fall upon its entire surface,
when full—a supposition clearly beyond the actual
fact—and deducting, accordingly, the area of the
lake 16.9
There will remain an available area, of which the
water will drain into the lake, and which can all be
relied on for use, of ...... 192y\ square miles.
We shall then have, of available water for the support of the
navigation
192yV x 55,156,800 = 10,122,032,640 cubic feet.
Now, the capacity of Meadow Lake, it has been seen, is
13,581,815,000 cubic feet.
We are in a position, therefore, to be able to hold and
draw off annually the entire amount of the drainage,
and still leave a surplus of 2,865,783,000 cubic feet for
the convenience of navigating the lake, and preventing
the exposure of its bed to the sun.
A careful calculation, of which the processes and
results, step by step, are entered on the atlas of cross
sections, herewith submitted, shows that the lake is
capacious enough to permit the whole of the computed
average annual drainage to be drawn off for the im¬
provement of the navigation of the rivers below, without
reducing the actual depth over 30 feet.
THE MEADOW RESERVOIR.
31
Before making application of these facts to the great
practical problem of supplying the Ohio and Kanawha
with water, I will ask attention to the position of this
remarkable reservoir in another important aspect.
From the outlet of the lake, at the pass which I pro¬
pose to close by the mound or wall that is to form it,
the channel of Meadow River, so level above the dam,
begins suddenly to descend with very great rapidity
towards the Gauley.
The distance from the site of the dam to the mouth
of Meadow River is 28 miles; and the fall in that space,
by the levels run under my directions in 1838, by Mr.
Wm. G. Waller, Civil Engineer, is just 1199 feet, or at
the average rate of nearly 43 feet per mile—a great
deal of the way over a rocky bed, and nearly all the
remainder of the distance over masses of water-worn
stone resting upon the rock. (See Note C.)
The fall in the first mile below the dam is 19 feet.
From the mouth of Meadow River to the mouth of
the Gauley, by the same survey, the distance, measured
in mid-winter, on the ice, was found to be 29 miles, and
the descent of the Gauley in that space, is 621 feet, or
at the rate of 21 feet per mile—for a great portion of
which distance the Gauley also runs thi'ough a deep
and remarkably wild gorge in the mountains, bounded
by almost inaccessible cliffs of sandstone. The dis¬
tance along New River, from the mouth of the Gauley
to the foot of Loop Creek Shoal, is 6 h miles, and the fall
51 feet, or 8 feet per mile—likewise on a bed of bare
and solid rock, or on broken masses resting thereon.
32
OF THE DRAINAGE.
At this point—a short space below the foot of Loop
Creek Shoal—the improved navigation of the Kanawha
is to be commenced.
It will be observed, therefore, that the water which I
purpose to collect in the reservoir, and discharge into
the river, will be hurried along a steep and rocky
channel, from the outlet of the lake to the point where
it is to be made serviceable, 64 miles distant, with great
rapidity, and without the risk of any material loss by
the way. It will be exposed but 8 or 10 hours on its
passage.
Such are the properties of the artificial lake which I
have surveyed and propose to use as one of the feeders
of the Kanawha and Ohio.
OF THE DRAINAGE.
The value of the drainage, or the ratio of the volume
of water which is shed from a given area, to the rain¬
fall upon the same area, has been the subject of much
investigation, and also of much discussion among engi¬
neers, on account of its practical bearings. There are,
however, some important facts, intimately connected with
this question, which, I think, though occasionally alluded
to, have never been adequately recognized in these dis¬
cussions.
A larger proportion of the water which falls upon the
earth may be collected into reservoirs, situated near the
point where it falls, than into large reservoirs, at points
remote from the places where it falls.
GristSz Saw Mill.
, W. HMacfailaiul
Saw Mill
63360
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Widow Mi
OF THE
PURPOSED 19EAMW HAKE
PROJECTED DY
Charles Ellet Jr C.E
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OF THE DRAINAGE.
33
A much larger proportion, also, may be collected in
reservoirs at the base, or between ranges of mountains,
than in those which receive the drainage from planes
and prairies.
A larger quantity of rain falls, also, on very elevated
mountains, than in regions in other respects similarly
situated, but which are less elevated.
These are important facts to be noted in the determi¬
nation of the supply of water which may be expected to
flow into the reservoir under consideration.
In all these particulars, its position is extraordinarily
favorable. It is elevated above all the surrounding coun¬
try, and is itself surrounded by high mountains. The
water which drains from these heights runs but a short
distance before it is delivered into the reservoir. The
downfall of rain must therefore be large, and the ratio
of drainage to the downfall, also large.
Though these conclusions would seem to be obviously
reasonable, I will endeavor to illustrate them by a few
pertinent facts.
The Mississippi valley above the mouth of Red River,
from the best calculation I can make, covers no less than
1,226,000 square miles, and the volume of water which
would drain from that vast area, would be sufficient, if
it were as great for each square mile of the territory
drained, as I found that of the upper Ohio to be at
Wheeling, to maintain the lower Mississippi at a height
greater than it ever reaches in the fullest flood, the whole
year round. Yet the Mississippi is only in flood from
two to four months in the year.
34
OF THE DRAINAGE.
Again: The drainage of the Ohio valley above Wheel¬
ing I have shown to be, for a scries of years, but 40 per
cent, of the average downfall of water over the entire
area drained—supposing that downfall to average 36
inches—while the drainage into the proposed reservoir
on Anthony's Creek, of which the source and course are
in the mountains of Virginia, was found by Mr. Lorraine
to be 65i per cent, of the downfall.
The same difference is observable in England, where
the entire drainage of the Thames falls far short, in pro¬
portion to the area drained, of the volumes annually col¬
lected by many small reservoirs.
But, notwithstanding these considerations in favor of
a larger drainage, I shall base nothing upon mere specu¬
lation, and shall assume the quantities measured and
realized in the surveys of the proposed Anthony's Creek
reservoir—oidy about 25 miles east of the proposed
Meadow lake—as the guide to the volume which may
be looked for there.
There is yet one other point bearing on this subject,
which should not be overlooked. There are great differ¬
ences to be noticed between the results of observations
on the drainage of the upper Ohio, in different years.
One, and the principal cause of these differences, is
stated in the second edition of my paper on that subject.
It is that the recorded quantities are given as the drain¬
age of the calendar year, and not of the navigable year.
The calendar year commences and ends in the middle
of the rainy portion of the year; and in some seasons
the water drains off mainly in the early part of winter,
OF THE DRAINAGE.
35
and in other years, it falls in early winter, and remains
on the earth in the form of snow, which melts, and passes
off in the spring. If the years were assumed to com¬
mence and end at any date between the months of May
and November, the annual drainage of consecutive years
would exhibit much slighter differences. The failure to
make this discrimination between the calendar year and
the drainage year, has led one or two professional writers
into serious error.
In estimating the drainage which may be realized in
the Meadow reservoir, I see no reason why we should not
assume the highest figure which is given to express the
proportion of available water to the rain-fall, on sufficient
authority, for any existing work.
There is, in the space which will feed this lake, really
■no level ground. It is surrounded on all sides by hills
and steep mountains, where the fallen water cannot re¬
main. The extreme distance which the remotest drops
will come, in a direct path, from the summit of Grassy
Knob to the lake, will be 1(M miles.
Such, too, is the form of the lake, which, while it is
surrounded by mountains, itself almost envelops the
Little Sewell Mountain, and other lofty hills, that the
greater portion of the rain will fall within four miles of
some one of its numerous bays and inlets.
It would certainly, in my opinion, be advisable forth¬
with to institute a complete system of observations, both
on the rain-fall, and on the discharge for this precise
locality. In the mean time, for the purposes of this re¬
port, I assume a rain-fall of 37 inches, and that the drain-
36
OF T1IE DRAINAGE.
age which may be collected, will be 65 per cent, of that
quantity—or 24 inches per annum. I am of the opinion,
however, and am supported in that opinion by the obser¬
vation of experienced residents of that neighborhood,
that more water falls on the mountains around this lake
than at points somewhat removed from it. I have no
doubt, either, that more than 65 per cent, of the quan¬
tity falling will pass into the lake, and, consequently,
that we shall not only be able to fill the reservoir
annually, and reserve its entire available contents for
summer use, but will be able to spare enough to aid
the navigation of the Ohio, in some small degree, at
other periods.
It is shown by Hughes that there are well known re¬
servoirs in England, into which more than 80 per cent.
of the rain-fall on the entire area drained, is collected
and made available for domestic uses.*
This branch of my subject has been discussed with his
customary ability, by Mr. Ellwood Morris, of Phila¬
delphia—an engineer justly distinguished for his culti¬
vated mind, and practical skill—who has exhibited the
characteristics of numerous reservoirs, and the ascer¬
tained results in their use, some of which will be found
in note E, and may be examined with profit.
The Silver Creek reservoir, on the Schuylkill naviga¬
tion, was designed by Mr. Morris, and constructed under
his professional supervision, and though it holds more
than the usual allowance made by engineers for the
* See Hughes on Water Works, p. 28*2. See also Note E.
OF THE DRAINAGE.
37
available drainage of a given ground—13 inches over
the whole area—it is often filled up entirely in the
space of four or five weeks, and never requires over
eight weeks, after the stops are closed, in the latter part
of winter.
It is important that we should not, in planning, these
works, under-estimate the drainage. We need all the
water we can collect in any single reservoir, and our
plans should be broad enough to enable us to command
it all. If our reservoir holds more water than can be
annually gathered, we can retain a greater depth in the
bottom for its proper navigation, and at the same time
more completely protect the country below from the
floods, so far as they are contributed by its sources of
supply.
But, unfortunately, the possibility of controlling the
floods of rivers, by arresting a portion of the water which
produces them, in reservoirs, seems to be a proposition
which many engineers find great difficulty in admitting.
But that difficulty ought certainly to have no existence
here. The meadows of Meadow River are capacious
enough, with a dam of very moderate height, to hold
every drop of water that will enter the lake I propose
to form there, in the course of a year.
It should be clear, I think, then, to every comprehen¬
sion, that in so far as the floods of the streams below
this dam are now swollen by the outpouring of the waters
of Meadow River, they must be made less by the reten¬
tion of the water in this lake. If the lake retains all
the waters of the Meadow River in the mountains above,
38 SUPERFICIAL ARK A OF THE
those waters certainly cannot go down, while so retained,
to increase the floods in the Kanawha.
SUPERFICIAL AREA OF THE KANAWHA AND OHIO
RIVERS.
Before we can proceed to determine the effects which
the water of this lake, discharged into the Kanawha
and thence into the Ohio in given quantities and times,
will produce, we must investigate the characteristics of
these rivers in another aspect.
In this part of my subject, I propose, in order to
render the demonstrations clearer to unprofessional
readers, to adopt, in the first instance, a mode of com¬
putation perfectly reliable, yet differing from that which
would ordinarily be preferred.
I have already shown that the Meadow Reservoir will
cover an area of 16.9 square miles.
It has also been ascertained, from the detailed surveys
of Mr. Byers, that the surface covered by the Kanawha
lliver, from a point below Loop Creek Shoals to its
mouth, a distance of 871 miles, is, at common low
water, 9T87 square miles.
It follows, therefore, since the area of the reservoir is
nearly If times greater than that of the river to be first
supplied, that, by drawing off water enough to reduce the
surface of the reservoir one foot, we will supply water
enough to the Kanawha to raise its surface throughout
the 871 miles of its navigable course an average height
of nearly li feet.
KANAWHA AND OHIO RIVERS.
39
This computation is not subject to any corrections
consequent on the greater elevation of the water at the
foot than at the head of the shoals, in consequence, in
other words, of its unequal distribution along the river.
I use the average height to avoid the necessity of such
corrections, and present the case in this simple form to
enable the reader more readily to see the probable
reasonableness of my plan, and as a pretty close approxi¬
mation, so far as the Kanawha is concerned, to a correct
practical solution.
In point of fact, if we admit water enough into the
Kanawha to raise the pool opposite Charleston, at the
head of Elk Shoal, two feet, that same volume will raise
it in the pool near the foot of Elk 2j% feet, and in that
at the foot of Tyler, 5 miles lower down the river, and
thence on to the mouth of Coal River, about 4 feet.
This is not the result of speculation, or computation
based on theory, but of actual and careful measurements,
which I instituted for the purpose of obtaining data for
these calculations as soon as I engaged in this investiga¬
tion. (See Note F.)
It is not to be supposed that the gradual augmentation
of the depth, due to the passage of a given volume of
water per unit of time, along the channel, as we descend
the river from Charleston to its mouth, is calculated to
vitiate our conclusions, and lead to disappointment. On
the contrary, it goes simply to show that we have only
to supply water enough to produce the depth at which
we aim on the most difficult shoals up the river to be
assured that, owing to the materially decreasing fall of
40
SUPERFICIAL AREA OF THE
its bed, and the slightly increasing breadth of its surface,
as we descend, we shall maintain that, and a still greater
depth, to its mouth.
For the same reason we may be assured that the
Avater with which Ave fill up the channel even of the
lower portion of the KanaAvha—Avliich still has a greater
descent than the Ohio—will be precipitated more rapidly
into the Ohio than it could pass, off along the gentler
slope of that river, if the area of the section of the Ohio
Avere the same as that of the Kanawha; and that, con¬
sequently, the rise in the Ohio would be greater than in
any part of the Kanawha. But the Ohio is Avider than
the KanaAvha, and it requires, therefore, a greater mass
of Avater, mile for mile, to fill its channel than is required
for the Kanawha.
Waiving, for the present, all the minor considerations
Avhich enter this problem, I ask attention at first to the
following facts.
The average Avidth of the Kanawha, as already stated,
is 590 feet, or of a mile. Its length, as far as it is
proposed to be improved, is 871 miles. The total area
of its surface, Avhen less than 3£ feet above Ioav Avater, is
9 i8g square miles.
The average width of the Ohio, obtained by triangu-
lation during the moderately low Avater of September, at
21 different and known points, distributed along from
Pomeroy to Guyandotte bar, a distance of 56 miles, Avas
ascertained to be 965 feet, or -j2t of a mile. (See Note
D.) To obtain a superficial area of the Ohio equal to
KANAWHA AND OHIO RIVERS.
41
that of the entire Kanawha, or 9^ square miles, we
must therefore measure off
910 x V = 53190 miles'
or, in round numbers, 54 miles.
In other words, a volume of water which will he suffi¬
cient to raise the whole navigable length of the Kanawha
any given average amount will suffice to raise the surface
of 54 miles of the Ohio, at and near the mouth of the
Kanawha, the same amount.
Now, what is that quantity, and what relation does it
bear to our means of supplying it—the proposed Meadow
reservoir I
We have seen that our lake will cover a superficial
area of ld^ square miles, and will contain water enough
to cover that area an average depth of 281-9tf feet. Then,
it is perfectly clear that if we reduce the surface of the
lake 12 inches, by drawing that amount of water from it,
we will raise both the 871 miles of the Kanawha and
the 54 miles of the Ohio each an average of
^ = 20 jV inches or II feet.
9.8 10
But the reservoir, it has been shown, will have an
average depth of 221 feet of available water; and, con¬
sequently, it would , afford water enough to create 13
such floods every year, and will still retain sufficient to
render it navigable and serviceable to the surrounding
country as a means of local intercommunication. (See
Note G.)
I have not chosen to turn aside here to make allow-
6
42 DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
ances for the slight increase of breadth, due to the
increase of depth of the two rivers, or to make precise
computations of the effect of a given volume of water at
the head and foot of every shoal. I pass all that by as
secondary to the main point which I wish to establish,
viz., that the water drawn with due rapidity from the
lake will raise the rivers the amounts indicated. If it
be said that drawing the same quantity of water will
raise the two rivers different amounts, I take no obser¬
vation of that. Our care will be to provide the means
to draw fast enough to raise the surface of the Ohio the
height we wish, in order to float our coal-boats down to
the market. We know that when the water is thrown
into the Kanawha, and passes through the Kanawha that
fast, that the depth of the Kanawha will be made still
greater than that of the Ohio, and therefore great
enough.
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
It is important, for the proper planning of the im¬
provement of this navigation, to know what is the
actual amount of water discharged by the Kanawha,
both in its low state, and when it is in a navigable con¬
dition.
The Kanawha was gauged above Charleston, at my
instance, by Mr. Gill, in 1838, when it was supposed to
be at its lowest stage; and the results reported to me
were between 1300 and 1400 cubic feet per second.
Subsequently, however, the water fell that year to a
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAIVHA.
43
lower point than it had ever before been seen, and lower
than it has ever since been. Mr. Gill, during this
extremely low water, repeated his measurements below
Buffalo, and reported the result to be a discharge of
1100 cubic feet per second.
The accuracy of these measurements has never since
been tested, until the present year, when I gauged the
river again—the first time below Lykin's Shoal, and the
second at Buffalo.
The discharge computed from the surface velocities,
without reduction, was—
Below Lykin's Shoal . . 1231 cubic feet per second.
At Buffalo .... 1949 "
Between the times of taking these two observations,
the river had risen about 5 inches at Buffalo, above what
had then been the extreme low water of this year.
None of the observations which I herein report are
to be regarded as mere computations from the speed of a
surface float in the centre of the channel, with a reduc¬
tion made in accordance with De Prony's rule. In
taking them, the river was divided, in one case, into
four, and in the other into six spaces, by buoys, of
which the position was determined by angles from a
base line on shore, and the surface velocities were
obtained at each buoy by duplicate observations.
The ground selected at Buffalo was remarkably favora¬
ble for the purpose. The bottom was very level and
smooth, the current exceedingly uniform, and the wea¬
ther, during the observation, perfectly calm. The sur-
44 DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
face, however, had risen about 5 inches above its lowest
mark of this year; and was more than that by several
inches above its lowest point of 1838.
The result computed from the surface velocities, with¬
out reduction, was 1949 cubic feet per second.
By reducing the area of the section the amount due
to the elevation of the surface above the low water level
of this year, and reducing the velocities in the propor¬
tion of the square root of the hydraulic mean depth at
the time, to that of the hydraulic mean depth when the
water is five inches lower—for which the data were com¬
plete—I obtain for the low water discharge of this year,
computed from the surface velocities, still without re¬
duction, 1462 cubic feet per second.
My professional readers must make their own reduc¬
tion to obtain the mean velocity, and the actual dis¬
charge. I am not willing myself to apply De Prony's
empirical rule, which I am sure would here be in ex¬
cess, and am not prepared to offer one that is certainly
better. If we were to take the coefficient for the
mean velocity at the middle point of the depth we
should obtain—
1462 x av = 1316 cubic feet,
for the discharge per second at the low water of this
year. My impression is, that this is very near, but most
probably rather below the truth.
In these practical researches I shall assume for the
Discharge at extreme low water 1100 cubic feet per second.
Discharge at common low water 1350 cubic feet per second.
DISCHARGE OF TIIE KANAWHA.
45
It would scarcely be justifiable, for the economical
objects in view, to base our computations on the supply
of water which would be needed to make up the defi¬
ciency during the remarkable drought which occurred
in 1838, the like of which has never since been seen.
It would be more reasonable to arrange our plans with
reference to the supply which we shall have in common
low water—when it may be fairly assumed, both from
the observations of this year and those of 1838, to be
about 1350 cubic feet per second.
The channels to be cut through the shoals are assumed
to be of the form represented in Plate 2, Fig. 2—that
is, 80 feet wide at bottom, with sides sloping up three
feet for each foot in height.
This is the section adopted by your chief engineer for
the improvement which he recommends; and I adopt it
in my present plan, as the minimum for the shoals below
Charleston; but propose to increase the dimensions,
wherever the fall and position of the shoal will permit
it to be done without reducing the proposed minimum
depth of water.
It is now necessary to our plan, and further progress,
to determine what depth we shall have in these channels,
in common low water, for any grade or rate of descent
we may think it advisable to adopt.
My purpose is not to recommend any violent effort to
change the actual adjustment, or, to employ a technical
word, the regimen of the river; but to allow it, as much
as possible, to preserve its natural characteristics, of deep
and level pools separated by occasional chutes of quicker
40
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
descent, which we know give us a good navigation
whenever the channel is furnished with a good supply of
water. Hence, I desire no further to alter the slope, or
grades of the shoals and pools, than may be effected by
a deeper or less deep excavation for the improved chan¬
nels which I propose to form. We will thus, while cor¬
recting the defects of the present channels, at the points
where the obstructions are found, leave the good parts
of the river in the same good condition in which they
were left by Nature. The adjustment of the proportions
of these channels through the shoals must, of course,
be made with proper care and skill.
Let us now see what depth will be obtained in such
channels as I propose to provide, when the natural low
water dischai'ge of the river is 1350 cubic feet per second,
and the inclinations of the channels, such as are given
in the table below.
These computations are made from the most reliable
formulae in use; but it will be understood by the prac¬
tical reader, that in the arrangement of these chutes we
are dealing with coarse materials, and that though the
computations may be carried out with propriety to the
nearest inch, we cannot expect to work to that degree of
precision. After computing nicely, we must make libe¬
ral allowances for the imperfections of the formula, and
the data, and the stubbornness of the material.
To fcLCe- pcu/f, 46.
Fig.l.
SECTION OF THE VALLEY OF MEADOW RIVER,AT THE DAM
Fig. 2.
Scale 16 feet to an irtch
SECTION OF THE PROPOSED CHANNELS THROEGH THE SHOALS OF KANAWHA RIVER
Engraved- at J.M3utLers E stabliexurtertt,8 4 Chestnut St.Plrilad-8-
DISCHARGE OF TnE KANAWHA.
47
TABLE
OP DEPTHS CORRESPONDING WITH GIVEN GRADES IN CHAN¬
NELS OF THE FORM REPRESENTED IN THE ANNEXED EN¬
GRAVING; THE DISCHARGE BEING 1350 CUBIC FEET PER
SECOND.
Grade, 3 feet per mile . . . Depth, 3 feet 8 inches ;
Grade, 4 feet per mile . . . Depth, 3 feet 4 inches;
Grade, 5 feet per mile . . . Depth, 3 feet 1 inch ;
Grade, 6 feet per mile . . . Depth, 2 feet 11 inches;
Grade, 8 feet per mile . . . Depth, 2 feet 1 inches.
In channels of the dimensions here proposed, having
a grade of 8 feet per mile, the mean velocity of the cur¬
rent will be but 5 i feet per second, or less than 4 miles
an hour.
We will observe, by the above table, that the common
low water discharge of the river will afford a depth of
three feet in the channels proposed, whenever the grade
of the channel is not more than 5 feet per mile.
But I propose to secure for those navigating the
Kanawha, a permanent and reliable depth of 4 feet, at
all times and seasons, in all these channels. It is neces¬
sary, therefore, as the next fact, to ascertain what addi¬
tional supply of water is needed—or, how much we must
add to the natural common low water supply, which has
been ascertained to be about 1350 cubic feet per second
—to bring up the depths in such channels from three
feet to four feet.
The discharge of water through such a channel as is
proposed, and as is represented in Fig. 2, with a slope
48 DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
of 5 feet per mile, and a depth of 4 feet, will be, accord¬
ing to the most reliable formula we have,
2013 cubic feet per second.
If we deduct from this quantity, representing the
discharge through the channel when supplied with 4
feet, the actual discharge at low water, 1350 cubic feet
per second, we shall obtain
663 cubic feet per second,
for the volume of water which must be supplied by the
reservoir, in each second of time, to maintain the depth
in such a channel at 4 feet, with the fall of 5 feet per
mile assumed, during common low water.
If 6 feet per mile had been assumed for the grade, or
slope of the channel, the deficiency to be supplied from
the reservoir, in order to bring the depth up from 2 feet
11 inches, which it would then have in common low
water, to 4 feet, would be
858 cubic feet per second.
There are no shoals below Charleston on which it
Avill be at all difficult to obtain channels with inclina¬
tions of less than 5 feet per mile; and but four above
Charleston, and below Loop Creek, which will constrain
us to increase the grade of the bottom, and diminish the
width of the channel, as a means of compensating for
the increased expenditure of water.
Waiving just here the consideration of the circum¬
stances attending these four exceptions, I think I am
justified in assuming 700 cubic feet per second as a full
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
49
estimate of the additional volume of water which must
be supplied to the river in each second, to maintain the
depth at four feet in all the other channels on that
portion of the river which it is proposed now to im¬
prove.
There are 86,400 seconds in 24 hours; therefore, the
consumption of water being taken at 700 cubic feet per
second, we must supply from the reservoir
86,400 x 700 = 60,480,000 cubic feet
every day, during the continuance of common low water,
in order to maintain a navigable depth of 4 feet in all
these channels.
Let us next compare this demand with the capacity
of the Meadow Reservoir, from which it is to be supplied.
The surface of that reservoir, I have already shown,
covers an area of
471,145,000 square feet.
If we divide this quantity, representing the number
of cubic feet contained in one foot of the depth of the
reservoir, by the above daily demand, we shall have
471,145,000
60,480,000
= Vf days;
or, we may draw from this reservoir water enough to
raise the depth in our channels from what it will be in
common low water, to four feet, during a period of 718g-
days and nights before we shall reduce the depth of the
lake 12 inches.
If we assume that 60 days is the average duration of
50 DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
common low water, and that we reduce our reservoir 12
inches every 7-^ days, we may conclude that we must
exhaust our lake to the depth of about eight feet to main¬
tain our channel depth at 4 feet throughout the period of
ordinary low water.
But the available depth of the reservoir—that depth
which may be annually exhausted—it has been shown
is 221 feet. Hence, we may supply the channel of the
Kanawha from this single reservoir, with water enough
to produce a permanent navigation of 4 feet, and still
retain a depth of 14i feet, or nearly two-thirds of the
Avhole available contents of the lake within the reservoir
applicable to other purposes. (See Note G.)
Before advancing further, I wish to allude to the pos¬
sibility of errors in these computations, arising either
from defects of the hydraulic formula on which engi¬
neers rely for determining the flow of water, or irregu¬
larities in the slope of the channel, or in the estimated
amount of the low water discharge. At all points there
are chances of some errors, and we must make allow¬
ances somewhere to meet them.
If we assume that these errors might reach an aggre¬
gate of 15 per cent., it will compel us to add 100 cubic
feet per second to the mass of water which Ave must
supply, and thus bring up the daily draught from the
reservoir, needed to maintain the navigation in the
channels at 4 feet, to
86,400 x 800 = 69,120,000 cubic feet
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA. 51
per diem; and for the assumed period of 60 days of
common low water,
4,147,200,000 cubic feet;
amounting to about 40 per cent, of the available con¬
tents of the reservoir.
Deducting this increased allowance for securing a
permanent navigation of 4 feet, from the total supply
which the reservoir will furnish, there will still remain
6,575,000,000 cubic feet applicable to the production of
floods or other valuable uses.
There are several modes in which this remainder,
amounting to more than three-fifths of the available
supply to be furnished by the Meadow Lake, might be
applied. The reservoir, for instance, might be drawn
upon constantly, as long as the depth in the channel-
ways is under some assumed limit, as, possibly, 5 feet;
so that boats of any draft less than 5 feet might ascend
and descend the river at all times. Or, it might be
drawn off so as to produce occasional floods of greater
height and more limited duration. These are questions
which will receive their practical solution after the com¬
pletion of the reservoir; and that solution will doubtless
be made with a view to afford the greatest accommoda¬
tion to the largest interests then on the river.
My present opinion is, that it will be found most ex¬
pedient, while the supply continues to be limited to that
which will be afforded by the single reservoir so far sur¬
veyed and investigated in detail, to discharge the volume
which we shall have to spare, after securing the per-
52
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
mancnt depth of 4 feet, in occasional floods, of sufficient
height for the descent of the loaded coal boats, and of
sufficient duration to create a wave that will extend far
enough along the Ohio River to enable the coal boats
that take it, to continue on it at least to Cincinnati.
The number and extent of such floods, which may be
drawn from this single reservoir, will be considered as
we advance further.
The discharge of the Kanawha, in a second of time,
estimated from the surface velocities, without reduction,
obtained when the water stood at several different stages,
is given below.
These measurements, it is proper to say, were made
with very great care. Buoys were established across the
channel so as to divide the river into ten and sometimes
into twelve sections. Soundings were taken with a
graduated rod at each buoy, and at the same point three
good and reliable observations on the velocity were made.
These three velocities were averaged; then the mean
surflice velocity between each two adjacent buoys was
multiplied into the area of the section included between
these two buoys.
The sum of these products, without abatement for
friction, is given below.
Many more observations than are here recorded were
taken, some untoward impediment having occurred in
all the others to destroy confidence in the results.
The most fruitful source of error in these investigations
is the wind. It is very unusual to be able to go a con¬
siderable distance, to the site prepared for the observa-
DISCHARGE OF THE K A N AIV H A 53
•
tions, and then have two or three hours of perfect calm
for their completion. Although the velocities may be,
as they ought to be, from 1 to 3 feet per second, a very
slight disturbance of the atmosphere affects the result,
and can be determined instantly in the time made by the
float.
Of the four observations recorded below, No. 1 was
made at Buffalo, and the three others a short distance
below Elk Shoal.
The first and second were made when all the circum¬
stances were favorable. The last two were both slightly
affected by the wind, which arose before the completion
of the observations.
The second is the most important of the four, and is
strictly reliable. The third is a very close approximation.
The fourth is the least to be depended on ; several of the
floats, at the close of the measurement, having been
opposed by a slight head wind, which somewhat re¬
duced the computed quantity.
DISCHARGE PER SECOND OF TIIE KANAWHA RIVER, COM¬
PUTED FROM THE SURFACE VELOCITIES, WITHOUT RE¬
DUCTION.
Cubic Feet.
No. 1. At Buffalo, wlieu the surface was about 5 inches above
common low water 1,949
No. 2. At Elk. Head of shoal, 2.01 feet above low water;
foot of shoal, 2.42 feet above low water . . 9,500
No. 3. At Elk. Head of shoal, 3.07 feet above low water;
foot of shoal, 3.74 feet above low water . . 16,640
No. 4. At Elk. Head of shoal, 3.81 feet above low water;
foot of shoal, 4.76 feet above low water . . 21,200
54
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
From these quantities, which are derived from the
surface velocities, we are to deduce the actual discharge;
and for this purpose I shall assume again the coefficient
t97, as the one which, if not the most accurate, is at
least most likely to protect us against the error of under¬
estimating the quantities of water to be dealt with.*
DISCHARGES PER SECOND REDUCED FOR FRICTION.
Cubic Feet-
No. 1. Reduced to the actual discharge at common low water 1,350
No. 2. At Elk. Rise at head of shoal, 2.07 above low water;
at foot of shoal, 2.42 above low water . . 8,550
No. 3. At Elk. Rise at head of shoal, 3.07 above low water;
at foot of shoal, 3.74 above low water . . 14,970
No. 4. At Elk. Rise at head of shoal, 3.81 above low water;
at foot of shoal, 4.76 above low water . . 19,080
I think it would scarcely he safe in any practical
application, to assume for this last result less than 21,000
cubic feet per second.
Now, we have seen that, in order to obtain a depth
of 6 feet in the channels, we must first raise the depth
to 3 feet, by concentrating the natural low water flow of
* R was my intention to have instituted some observations for the
express purpose of approximating more closely than I think is prac¬
ticable from any of the general and received formula}, to the mean
velocity in the particular case before me. But my time was too limited
to permit the attempt.
DISCHARGE OF THE KANAWHA.
55
the river in the excavated chutes—which, as has been
shown, will consume per second . 1350 cubic feet.
Then, we must bring up the perma¬
nent depth in these chutes to 4 feet,
which will require an additional sup¬
ply of 700 cubic feet per second—but
which, to guard against errors, I have
estimated at .... 800 " "
There will then be required, to pro¬
duce a depth of 4 feet, for permanent
navigation, per second . . . 2150 " "
The channels would not then be entirely full. But I
think it safer to make no allowance for any saving of
water in raising the surface an additional 2 feet, conse¬
quent on closing the outlets through which it is now
wasted over the bars, and confining it within the single
new channel; but to assume that after the water is con¬
centrated in the enlarged and improved chutes, it will
require as much additional supply to raise the surface an
additional 2 feet, as it does in the present state of the
river. This will somewhat exaggerate the volume of
water needed, but the error will be on the safer side.
From the total present discharge of the Kanawha, when there is a
rise of 2T^ feet above low water, at the head of Elk, with the outlets
through the shoal all open, . . . 8,550 cubic feet per second,
Deduct the amount estimated to be re¬
quired to produce a depth of 4 feet, . 2,150 " " "
And there will remain to be supplied, 6,400 cubic feet per second,
to give us an additional rise of 2T(jo feet, or a total navigable depth of
6 feet.
50
FLOODING TIIE OHIO.
By the same process we will find that to give a
navigation of 7 feet in the channels—or to produce a
rise of 3T£7 feet at the head of Elk Shoals, after a new
channel has been excavated and filled to the depth of 4
feet, will require a further supply of water, equal to
about 13,000 cubic feet per second.
The application of these facts to the filling up of the
Kanawha, and flooding the Ohio will be reserved for a
future page.
FLOODING THE OHIO.
I have shown from actual measurements that it will
require as much water to cover 54 miles in length of the
Ohio, when at common low water, a given average depth,
as it will require to raise the whole navigable length of
the Kanawha, 874 miles, an equal average amount.
Let us assume now that it is desirable to fill up the
Ohio, or create a wave along its course, 4 feet high and
54 miles long—so as to give a depth of 6 feet for navi¬
gation. How much water will the production of this
wave require, and how much will our Meadow Reservoir
be reduced by furnishing that supply 1
The width of the Ohio, in the space under discussion,
is 965 feet; but for the purposes of the present compu¬
tation, I will assume that it is 1000 feet.
A flood 54 miles long, 1000 feet wide, and 4 feet deep,
will require
54 x 5280 x 4 x 1000 = 1,140,480,000 cubic feet of
water.
FLOODING THE OHIO.
57
If we divide this, the quantity required to produce
the wave, by the area of our artificial lake, expressed
in square feet, Ave shall obtain
1,140,480,000 _ 0 4 ,
471,145,200 10
for the depth that the lake must be drawn doAvn to pro¬
duce such a flood, four feet deep, in the Ohio.
We arrive then at these results:—
Cubic feet.
The Meadow Reservoir will contain, of available
water, the entire average annual drainage . . 10,122,032,000
To keep up the depth in the channels of the Kanawha
at 4 feet, during 60 days of low water, will con¬
sume of this quantity 4,141,200,000
There will remain, therefore, available for the produc¬
tion of floods ....... 6,514,832,000
To create a flood in the Ohio 54 miles long, and four
feet above common low water, will require . . 1,140,480,000
Consequently, the contents of this one reservoir will be equal to the
production of six such floods, after furnishing the supply needed to
maintain the depth in the channels constantly at 4 feet during 60 days
of low water.
My impression is that a much shorter wave than is
assumed in this computation will suffice fully to main¬
tain the depth which it has on entering the Ohio all the
way to Cincinnati.
But we shall be able to accomplish something more
than this. The 800 cubic feet per second, or 48,000
cubic feet per minute, ivhich has been allotved to make
8
58
FLOODING THE OHIO.
up the deficiency during GO days of low water, in the new
channels of the Kanawha, will flow through the Kana¬
wha into the Ohio, and produce a permanent and mate¬
rial improvement of the navigation in that river. I
have not the means of stating positively how much the
depth in the channels of the Ohio will be increased by
that contribution. My direct investigations of this
summer did not extend so far; but I am, nevertheless,
able to conclude, from observations made at a former
period, and recorded in my work on the Ohio and Mis¬
sissippi, that we shall err very little in assuming five
inches for the probable increase of the permanent navi¬
gable depth of the Ohio, below the mouth of the
Kanawha, consequent upon the discharge of 800 cubic
feet per second into the channel, during the period of
common low water.
I cannot swell this report, already much longer than
I wished to make it, by dwelling upon the value of these
facts. I submit them for the serious consideration- of
that portion of the public that is interested in the
development of the rich mineral wealth of the Kanawha.
I am quite sure, notwithstanding the universal scepti¬
cism with which I am compelled to cope in this matter,
that I may regard the subjects for thought here pro¬
mulgated as practical seed, tardily sown, yet destined to
bear most valuable practical fruit.
I am obliged still, before dismissing this branch of my
subject, to allude to another material point on which I
am not able to give absolute and reliable information.
It is important to know precisely how fast the water
FLOODING THE OHIO.
59
must be drawn from the reservoir in order to swell the
Ohio 4 feet, or any other given amount, at and below
the mouth of the Kanawha. I had no opportunity,
when in the western part of the State during the season
of low water, to make the observations needed to settle
this point with satisfactory precision. But my investi¬
gations on the upper part of the river render it probable
that the discharge from the lake would be under 13,000
cubic feet per second to insure a rise of 4 feet on the
Ohio below Point Pleasant, or a total depth on the bars
there of about 6 feet, and on the worst bars of the
Kanawha, below Elk Shoal, of about 7 feet.
Some of my observations of this year on the Kanawha,
where the depths, slopes, and volume discharged were
measured, lead also indirectly to the conclusion, when
applied to the Ohio, that a supply of just about 13,000
cubic feet per second would produce a rise of 4 feet in
that river, and give a total depth of 6 feet there, with
about 7 feet on the worst bars of the lower Kanawha.
These, however, are conclusions indirectly obtained;
while the fact to which they apply is of too much im¬
portance to be allowed to rest on anything less reliable
than direct and careful observations.
In the mean time, I shall take care so to adjust the
openings in the dam for the delivery of the water as to
enable me to let off 20,000 cubic feet per second when
the reservoir is full, and 10,000 cubic feet per second
after its surface has been reduced to its lowest level.
We are now in a position to determine approximately
how long it will require to draw water from the dam at
GO
FLOODING THE OHIO.
the rate assumed in order to produce a flood 54 miles
long and 4 feet deep in the Ohio River.
We have seen that such a flood in the Ohio will con¬
tain 1,140,480,000 cubic feet of water. Dividing this
by the approximate discharge, or 13,000 cubic feet per
second, we obtain
1,140,480,000 __ yy 729 seconds
13,000
or a mere fraction over 24 hours.
We have then these results: That, to produce a wave
54 miles long and 6 feet deep on the bars of the Ohio,
at low water, we must draw fast enough from the lake
to produce a depth of 7 feet on Elk Shoal, and at least 7
feet on all the shoals below Elk. That draught must
continue for a period of 24 hours. It must reduce the
depth of the lake 2I4S- feet; and it must consume more
than the one-tenth part of the available contents of the
lake—showing that we may produce from this one reser¬
voir nearly 10 such floods per annum. (See page 81.)
The size of the openings, or wicket-area of the dam,
necessary to produce these results will be discussed
under another division of this report. I will merely say
here, on that subject, that these openings may be made
as large and as numerous as we wish, and that we can
exercise complete control over the discharge. So that,
if it be alleged that, in consequence of the somewhat
greater rise of water which we shall produce at the foot
than at the head of the shoals, we shall not realize our
expectations on the Ohio, it will be perceived that Ave
FLOODING THE OHIO.
61
can compensate for any such slight difference by the
greater or less rapidity of the draught at the dam.
There is another matter, however, that must not be
overlooked in this connection. We must take care that
the channel of the small stream below the dam will be
competent to carry off the torrent we will pour into it,
in flooding the Ohio. In the case before us, however,
there will be no difficulty of this sort. The channel of
Meadow River is a veritable chasm, containing only here
and there a small strip of land that can ever be rendered
valuable for cultivation. It requires considerable physical
endurance and good muscle to examine it. There are
three small mills upon it, at the points where some very
inaccessible paths approach the stream. These are of
little value, and must be purchased or adapted to the
altered condition of the river.
I will still submit one other pertinent illustration of
the practicability of flooding the Ohio—that proposition
which has been considered so doubtful and so chimerical.
To raise a portion of the river one mile long, one foot,
or to bring the depth of that mile up, from two feet to
three feet, will require an average supply of water equal
to
5,280 x 965 = 5,095,200 cubic feet.
But, as we know, the Meadow reservoir will contain and
furnish annually an available supply of
10,722,032,640 cubic feet.
Now, by dividing this volume, representing the available
contents of the reservoir, by the number of cubic feet
62
TRIBUTARIES OF THE KANAWIIA.
required to fill one mile in length of the Ohio, one foot
deep, we obtain
10,722,032,640 _ 2,104 miles:
5,095,200
Or, this single reservoir will contain available water
enough to enable us to fill up one foot deep more than
three such rivers as the Ohio, from the mouth of the
Kanawha to the Mississippi, every year.
Now, I trust that those, my kind but incredulous
friends, whose over caution closes their minds against
all useful, practical truth, and who can believe nothing
to be possible until they see it accomplished, will go
over these figures and facts carefully, again, and deter¬
mine from them whether they can still resist the difficult,
but inevitable conclusion, that this plan of improving
the navigation of the Ohio River is really practicable.
TRIBUTARIES OF THE KANAWHA.
I cannot extend this Report by discussing the cha¬
racteristics of the tributaries of the Kanawha, intimately
as that subject is connected with the question of im¬
proving the river itself. It must suffice to say now,
that the Kanawha has six great tributaries, each of
which would be recognized in any part of Europe as an
important river, and worthy of the most careful study.
They will all doubtless soon be so regarded here. One
of these, the Gauley, is not susceptible of any material
improvement by means of reservoirs. Two others, the
TRIBUTARIES OF THE KANAWIIA. 63
Greenbrier and New River—the latter, especially above
the mouth of Greenbrier—may be improved in places,
and for considerable distances, as this system is gradu¬
ally extended, on the plan which I propose for the
Kanawha itself, by the water which will pass through
their channels to feed the Kanawha and the Ohio.
The three other tributaries—Elk River, Coal River,
and the Pocotalico—are all important streams, draining
regions charged with valuable coal mines, or covered
with excellent timber; and may be greatly benefited by
the construction of reservoirs on their smaller affluents,
which will first feed their own channels, and float down
the products of their own valleys, and thus serve to
sustain the navigable depth in the Kanawha, and next
in the Ohio, and finally contribute, each in its degree,
to the protection of the coasts of the Mississippi.
The intelligent and philosophical reader will not fail
to perceive, without detailed and labored explanations,
how beautifully this rational system adapts itself every¬
where to the wants of the country and its commerce;
how it imitates a bountiful Nature, supplying a smaller
navigation to the smaller streams, where the necessities
of the population and the trade are comparatively
limited; how it expands as it progresses from tributary
to tributary, concentrating the waters of numerous
smaller channels in the great commercial highways,
where more water is needed to swell the larger streams,
that bear the burden of the heavier traffic—supplying
all and relieving all, and each almost commensuratcly
with its wants.
64 DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCIIAROE.
THE DAM AND THE ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE.
The dam will either be a stone wall or a mound of
earth, depending on the character of the foundation,
which is believed, though not positively ascertained, to
be a sandstone rock. Large detached masses of sand¬
stone cover the slopes of the mountain and the bed of
the river, which cannot be satisfactorily examined with¬
out their removal. There can scarcely be a doubt,
however, that the bottom of the channel, immediately
under these loose masses, is solid rock, in place.
The height of the dam will be 68 feet above the sur¬
face of Meadow River at low water. Its length, at
base, will be the width of Meadow River, which at this
point is reduced to 140 feet between the tops of its
banks. At the proposed surface of the lake, the length
of the dam will be 875 feet.
If the dam is formed of earth, its width at the level
of the surface of the water will be 100 feet; and at the
foundation over 300 feet.
Fifty feet of the width of the mound, at top, will be
reserved for mill seats, leaving space for a landing and
road way, 34 feet wide, between the edge of the lake
and the front of the mills. If formed of earth, the top
of the bank will be raised about 5 feet above the bottom
of the waste.
The mills on this dam will be supplied from the lake
by pipes passing through the mound, below the lowest
level to which the water will be reduced. The loss of
DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE. 65
water which will be caused by its application for milling
purposes, will be too small to be worthy of any con¬
sideration here. When there is a small surplus, as there
may sometimes be, unless the dam is raised somewhat
higher, it will be just as well to allow the water to be
used in driving machinery as to run to waste; and when
there is a deficiency, and water must be furnished to
the rivers below, for the benefit of their navigation, it
is just as well to let it do service on its passage, as to
flow away idly into the streams to be supplied.
If the dam should be formed of earth, I propose to
place the wicket openings, through which the water
will be discharged, in a heavy stone wall, crossing a
canal to be cut through the rock at the end of the dam.
This channel will be 125 feet wide, and excavated to
a depth of 45 feet from the water surface when the lake
is full.
To draw off the water entirely, in dry weather, when
desirable, a pipe -36 inches in diameter will be placed
under the mound on the bed of the river.
The sectional area of each discharging orifice will be
assumed, in the computations which follow, at 30 square
feet. The centre of the orifice will be 40 feet below
the surface of the lake when the reservoir is full.
The velocity of the water discharged through the
wickets, at the commencement of the draught, or when
the lake is full, will be 32 feet per second. Each wicket
will, therefore, be capable of discharging 960 cubic feet
per second.
I propose to provide the dam with twenty-one such
()6 DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE.
openings, through which, when the lake is full, over
20,000 cubic feet per second can be drawn — nearly
enough to produce a flood of 4 feet above the permanent
depth of 4 feet, and consequently to create a minimum
total depth, from Witcher's Shoal down to the Ohio
River, of about 8 feet.
This effect can be produced by the discharge from
this single dam, until the surface of Meadow Lake is
considerably reduced. When the lake has been drawn
down 30 feet, its lowest level, the discharge per second
through each wicket will be but 475 cubic feet; and the
aggregate discharge, through the twenty-one openings,
and the bottom main, will be 10,000 cubic feet per second.
Even in this case, when the lake is drawn down to
the lowest level to which it is intended to be reduced,
the discharging apertures will be sufficient to produce
floods of more than 6 feet—approximating very closely
indeed to 6i feet deep—in the channels of the Kanawha.
The area of the lake has been ascertained to be
471,145,000 square feet. The discharge of all the
wickets, when the lake is full, being taken at 20,000
cubic feet per second, it will require, with the orifices
all opened, 23,500 seconds, or about six and a half hours,
to reduce the depth of the lake one foot.
But, it has been seen that a reduction of the depth of
the lake one foot, will increase the average depth of the
Kanawha River, from the proposed head of navigation
to the Ohio, II feet. We will be able, therefore, by
the arrangement proposed, to pour into that river water
enough in 6i hours from this single lake, to raise its
DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE. 67
whole surface an average of 21 inches. But the water
cannot pass through the Kanawha as rapidly as this
computation assumes; and it will, consequently, be piled
up, if I may so describe it, in a higher and shorter
wave—which will increase in altitude, and diminish in
length, as it descends the river, in consequence of the
lessening fall of the channel in passing from its head to
its mouth.
But, I am not yet quite prepared to decide whether
it would be best, in this position, to construct a mound
of earth, or a dam of solid masonry. That question
should be reserved until the site is cleared of all super¬
incumbent material, and the character of the foundation
clearly ascertained. This question is not merely one of
economy, but of safety. A mound of the most ample
dimensions will be much cheaper than a wall; but it
can only be safely adopted where a perfectly reliable
connection can be formed with the natural bottom.
In estimating the cost of the dam, it will be most
prudent to assume that it will be formed of massive
masonry, of plain but substantial work, and of ample
thickness. AVhere such extensive openings are needed,
a stone dam possesses some very great advantages; and,
if the foundation should prove to be all I expect to find
it, there are few places where stone could be more ad¬
vantageously applied to such a structure than just here.
Sandstone of excellent quality, and exceedingly conve¬
nient to the work, can be found scattered about in large
rectangular masses and in place, above and below the
site of the dam.
68
DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE.
My impression is that for plain, substantial masonry,
such as will be needed here, without ornament or cut¬
ting, excepting for the coping and the embrasures for the
gates, but laid throughout in hydraulic cement, a
cubic yard would be a sufficient price. I shall put it,
however, in my estimate, at $5 a cubic yard.
In regard to the proper dimensions of such walls there
are greater differences of opinion among engineers than
I think there ought to be; and the practice of this
country, as far as it has come under my observation, is
to make retaining walls, both to support wetted earth
and water, too slender. In estimating the cubical con¬
tents of the dam, I have assumed that its average thick¬
ness will be everywhere a little over half its height from
the natural surface of the soil, and at 110 point less than
10 feet.
In round numbers, the contents of this wall will be
35,000 cubic yards of masonry. I estimate the cost of
the dam, built of heavy stone, of this average thickness,
and distributed to the best advantage, for stability, as
below.
Should the Company obtain an appropriation from
Congress, sufficient to justify them in undertaking to
improve the Ohio River to the extent which I hope to
be able to show that it will be safe for them to engage
to do, I would think it expedient to add a few feet to the
height of this dam, for the purpose of improving the
permanent navigation of the lake, and still more com¬
pletely controlling all the drainage.
DAM AND ORIFICES OF DISCHARGE.
(59
ESTIMATE OF THE COST OF THE DAM, IF RAISED 68 FEET
ABOVE LOW WATER IN MEADOW RIVER.
Preparation of the foundations—assumed to be the removal
of 2500 cubic yards of loose rock, at $0.40 . . . $1,000
35,000 cubic yards of plain masonry, laid in hydraulic
cement, at $5.00 ........ 175,000
21 wickets, at $500 each 10,500
800 lineal feet of cut coping, 7 feet wide, at $5.00 . . 4,000
Probable cost of the dam . .... $190,500
Add for contingencies 25,000
Total estimated cost $215,500
The damages which will be occasioned by this work
are difficult to estimate. From the best information
which I was able to obtain, and the authority for which
I propose to submit to the Board in a separate commu¬
nication, the average value of the uncultivated and un¬
tamed meadows, may be set down at $5 an acre, and
that of the cultivated portions, with one or two excep¬
tions, where the soil is capable of easy drainage, and the
improvements are better, at about $17 an acre. I shall
estimate both these items, however, somewhat higher;
adding something for the increased value which this
property will acquire, in consideration of its adaptation
to the purpose in view.
In the following estimate of the surface which will be
inundated, it is to be understood, that I have so far only
computed the aggregafe quantity. The number of acres
of cultivated land is yet conjectural.
70
LOSS OF WATER PASSING FROM THE
ESTIMATE OF DAMAGES.
8500 acres, uncultivated, at $1.00 $59,500
1800 " cultivated, at $20.00 ..... 36,000
500 " " at $50.00 25,000
Cost of new turnpike, &c., ...... 5,000
Cost of altering three small mills on Meadow River below
the dam 3,000
$128,500
Add for contingencies, 20 per cent 25,100
Total estimated damages $154,200
Estimated cost of the dam 215,500
Estimated cost of Meadow Lake $369,700
111 the foregoing estimate, the prices allowed for the
damages is to be regarded rather as an estimate of the
amount the Company may be required to pay, than of
the intrinsic value of the property to be inundated.
I have not myself been able to make an estimate in
detail of the cost of preparing the channels of the
Kanawha for the reception of the water which will be
discharged into it from Meadow Lake. On this head I
must be guided by the former estimates of your engi¬
neers, made with a view to other plans; and shall
assume for that item the sum of $125,000 ; making the
total cost of the present improvement, as proposed by
me, $495,000; or, in round numbers, $500,000.
LOSS OF WATER PASSING FROM THE LAKE TO AND
ALONG THE OHIO.
I have already, in stating the average widths of the
Kanawha and Ohio, within the limits proposed to be
LAKE TO AND ALONG THE OHIO. 71
improved, shown that the surface of both rivers would
be increased an exceedingly small amount, by any mode¬
rate increase of the depth. With here and there an
exception, for a very limited distance, even at low water,
the river now spreads from shore to shore, leaving very
few bars or shoals exposed between the proper borders
of the streams. These rivers both flow almost every¬
where between high and steep banks, where a rise of
two or three feet above low water would only increase
the width from 12 to 20 feet—or from 2 to 3 per cent.
It follows, therefore, that there will be no appreciable
loss of water in passing through the channels, attribu¬
table to the evaporation; for that evaporation takes
place now, and is compensated for now, as it always has
been, and will be hereafter, by the springs and streams
which have their ultimate discharge in the river.
We have, therefore, no allowance or provision to
make in our estimates, for any increase of evaporation,
beyond the two or three per cent, due to the increased
breadth of the surface—a quantity entirely too small to
be made a matter of estimation in this report. I con¬
clude, therefore, that it is proper to assume that the
artificial supply of water which will enter the Kanawha
at the Great Falls, will pass along its entire length, and
be delivered practically undiminished, into the Ohio at
Point Pleasant, and will continue on down the Ohio,
equally without sensible reduction from this cause.
The same considerations apply with no less force, to
the exposure of the water during the eight or ten hours
that it will be confined to the narrow channels of Meadow
72 LOSS FROM EVAPORATION IN THE RESERVOIR.
River and the Gauley, in its descent to the Kanawha.
The tributaries and springs of these rivers now supply
their own evaporation. The increased volume poured
into them from the reservoir, will neither spread over a
surface materially wider, nor will the extraordinary ac¬
clivity of the channels permit even that slightly increased
surface to be long exposed to the sun. The water will
be hurried forward, along these streams, rapidly towards
the Kanawha, which will receive it all essentially with¬
out reduction ; it will pass through the Kanawha still
undiminished, and enter the Ohio in a volume almost
ecpial to that which was emitted from the lake.
It is not to be expected, however, that a mere artifi¬
cial wave or swell, of limited length, will preserve its
height, although its aggregate volume will be scarcely at
all diminished. The tendency of this wave will be,
where the descent of the stream is uniform, to spread
out, and become elongated—and care must therefore be
taken, in such cases, to give it sufficient height and
volume at the start, to insure the desired depth at least
to the great markets—Cincinnati and Louisville.
LOSS FROM EVAPORATION IN THE RESERVOIR.
The loss which will take place from the surface of
the reservoir itself, is a subject of far more importance
and deserving of real attention. The surface of the
Meadow Lake, as already stated, covers 16.9 square miles,
equal to the area of about 93 miles of the Ohio River
itself. From this surface an evaporation takes place,
HEALTH, AS AFFECTED BY RESERVOIR. 73
nearly equal to that on the 93 miles of the river, while
the lake, unlike the river, will have few or no tributa¬
ries during the summer drought, to supply the loss.
We must, therefore, be prepared to store up in our
reservoir, water enough to supply both the evaporation
from its surface and the volume needed for the support
of the navigation.
I will not burthen this Report with statistics or esti¬
mates of the actual evaporation from the surface of a
river or lake in this climate; but I will dispose of that
question by making an allowance to meet this loss quite
as great as it can be fairly assumed to require. My
assumption is, that the total rain fall on the lake will he
sufficient to compensate for the total evaporation from its
surface. I shall, therefore, in estimating the available
drainage, first deduct the area of the lake from the total
area which feeds the lake, and then estimate only the
quantity of water which will be drained from the residue
of the ground, as the true available supply.
HEALTH, AS AFFECTED BY THE RESERVOIRS.
I will briefly allude to the subject of Health, which it
is sometimes suggested might be impaired by the forma¬
tion of the projected reservoirs.
It might be sufficient to say, that experience has fully
demonstrated that this is an imaginary objection. There
are a great many reservoirs to be found not only in this
country, but in all parts of Europe, made either for the
purpose of feeding canals, or for supplying cities or
10
74 HEALTH, AS AFFECTED BY RESERVOIR.
manufacturing establishments. Some of these reservoirs
have been tested, even in warm climates, for more than
a century, and in one instance at least, in Southern
France, for nearly two centuries, and they have never
been found obnoxious to this objection.
It must be understood that the lakes which I propose
are not shallow collections of stagnant water; but masses
of pure, fresh water, to be annually supplied and annu¬
ally changed. Many of them, like Meadow Lake, will
be placed, high up in the mountains, where they will
occupy glades now subject to frequent overflows, which,
after barely covering a dense vegetation, subside and.
leave the moistened grass and weeds exposed, to the sun.
The lakes which I propose will substitute a permanent
mass of deep water for these occasional inundations.
It must be understood, also, that in these lakes, as I
wish to form them, the whole of the water is not in¬
tended to be drawn off, so as extensively to expose the
soil in the bottom; and that it is proposed to reduce the
depth gradually, so that the shores will dry up as the
water recedes, just as now occurs everywhere along the
banks of rivers.
The lake which is specially discussed, in this Report,
is intended, never to be drawn down, after the work is
completed and the timber removed, more than 30 feet—
which is less than half its extreme depth. About two-
thirds of the bottom will thus be left permanently
covered, and the greater part of the remaining third
will be only occasionally laid bare, during a few weeks
at the close of the season.
HEALTH, AS AFFECTED BY RESERVOIR. 7")
On account of the great extent of surface covered, the
descent of the water consequent on the draught for the
use of the navigation, will in the early part of the
summer be very slow. At the close of the season the
area laid bare will be greater, but the period during
which it will be exposed will be very brief.
The dense growth of timber and underbrush which
now covers a great portion of the meadows, will be much
in the way of the steamboats which will be used on the
lake, and care must therefore be taken gradually to re¬
move it. The plan which appears to me to be the
easiest, Avill be to cut down the most valuable trees and
secure the logs, to be sawed up on the completion of the
dam, when they can be floated to the mills which it is
proposed to establish there. The small undergrowth
will be killed by the water very soon after the meadows
are submerged, and the remaining larger trees, I pre¬
sume, will perish in the course of the first season.
The first year or two after the completion of the dam
the water should be entirely drawn out, the bottom
allowed to drain off and dry up in the autumn, when a
large part of the timber remaining in the lake can be
cut down and burned.
But, while on the subject of health, as connected with
this plan, it will be worth while, perhaps, to glance at
that important question Avith reference to the population
along the Ohio River.
The water of the Ohio, in the dry summers, is now for
many weeks stagnant in the pools. Along its course of
a thousand miles, many cities and large manufacturing
76 HEALTH, AS AFFECTED BY RESERVOIR.
towns have grown up, and are rapidly increasing in po¬
pulation, and, consequently, pouring an increased volume
of filth into the stagnant river. There is no other place
into which it can be conducted. The river itself is the
common receptacle of all the contents of the sewers and
gutters, and other disgusting products of all the cities
on its banks.
It is from the river, thus polluted, that the people
of the Ohio Valley now derive their supply of water for
domestic uses. It is scarcely to be doubted that the
day is not distant, when these great and increasing
cities will be driven to the necessity of purifying this
tainted water, for the preservation of the health of
their citizens. Even in London, where no such summer
heats prevail as in the valley of the Ohio, the impure
condition of the Thames has finally become a most
serious evil.
The present remedy, on the Ohio, is the natural
floods which, during a large part of the year, cleanse the
river and bear off its impurities to the sea. The future
remedy, for the increasing evil, must be those artificial
floods which I now advocate for other more immediate
purposes.
You may not receive the support due to this con¬
sideration, at the outset; yet, I am well convinced that
in a little while, all the great cities on the Ohio will be
ready to contribute to the production of summer floods,
which, while improving the navigation for the benefit
of commerce, will cleanse the rivers and purify the water
they consume.
IMPROVEMENT OF OHIO AND KANAWHA.
77
IMPROVEMENT OF THE OHIO AND KANAWHA
TOGETHER.
There is an important phase of the subject under dis¬
cussion which has not yet been considered, hut which
cannot be overlooked in a comprehensive examination of
this problem. So far, I have discussed the question of
improving the navigation of the Kanawha as one wholly
independent of the improvement of the upper Ohio,
which I have so long and so unsuccessfully labored to
effect, by the same means. But these two enterprises
are so closely identified and connected together that they
must necessarily be examined simultaneously. If the
upper Ohio should be improved in the mode that I for¬
merly recommended for that river, and now advise to be
adopted for the Kanawha, it will greatly lessen the
amount of water which must be supplied by the artificial
lakes that will feed the Kanawha, in order to bring up
the navigation of the lower Ohio to a good boating stage.
There are great interests on the Monongahela and
along the Ohio, from its head to the mouth of the
Kanawha, similar in character and fully equal in value
to those on the Kanawha. The Ohio is everywhere
almost as easy, and in some places and in some respects
much easier, to improve than the Kanawha. The chan¬
nels of the Ohio are already well prepared by nature,
and scarcely any excavation will be needed to fit them
for the reception of the water to be supplied. It must
be obvious, therefore, that so soon as you will have
78 IMPROVEMENT OF OHIO AND KANAWHA.
demonstrated the success of the plan which I recom¬
mend to you, by sending the Kanawha coal to market
while the coal from the Ohio Itiver above is excluded
by the low water, those unreasonable doubts and un¬
founded prejudices against this system which have been
cultivated on the upper Ohio with so much mistaken
zeal, will pass away, and the same efficient system will
be soon after adopted there. You cannot, therefore,
hope, and would not wish, to enjoy these advantages
alone. The same system which I here propose for the
Kanawha must be promptly applied to the upper tribu¬
taries of the Ohio; and the coal of the Monongahela
will be floated down that river, at first on occasional
waves, and ultimately on continuous floods, artificially
produced.
The effect of the extension of this system of improve¬
ment to the upper Ohio will be of the utmost import¬
ance to all who are interested in the trade of the
Kanawha; for it will enable them to confine their
labors exclusively to the improvement of the navigation
of their own stream.
If a flood descends the Ohio of sufficient volume to
float the coal barges from the mines along the Mononga¬
hela as far as the mouth of the Kanawha, it is very
clear that it will need but a small additional contribution
of water from the Kanawha to enable the same barges
which will have descended 264 miles, from Pittsburg to
Point Pleasant, where the slope of the river is greater,
to continue on 200 miles further, from Point Pleasant
to Cincinnati, where its inclination is much less.
IMPROVEMENT OF OIIIO AND KANAWHA. 79
Without wearying you with the demonstration, allow
me to say that a flood of sufficient volume to lift a boat
loaded with coal over the shoals of the Kanawha into
the Ohio, will suffice, when added to the wave that has
brought similar boats from the mouth of the Mononga-
hela to the mouth of the Kanawha, to float them on top
of their united swells down the Ohio to Cincinnati.
Now, further, the fact appears to me to be perfectly
obvious, from what has preceded, that if we supply
water enough to the Kanawha to raise its surface from
4 feet to 6 feet from the foot of Loop Creek Shoal to
the foot of Tyler, a distance of 37 miles, that volume of
water will serve to carry the boats which descend from
above to the mouth of the river. We know that a rise
of any given height at the head of any considerable
shoal above Tyler, will produce a rise of greater height
at every point below Tyler, and that the wave 37 miles
in length, transferred to the lower part of the river, will,
by reason of the diminished fall and consequent velocity
below, be concentrated within a shorter distance, and
hence create a higher swell. This was to be expected
from the inclinations and the Avidths of the river, and
this is found from measurements to be true, in fact.
Of the 52i miles between the foot of Tyler Shoal and
the Ohio River, the lower 20 miles has very little fall,
and will be raised still higher than the section imme¬
diately above it, from Tyler to Buffalo.
I make, then, this point: That your improvement of
the Kanawha by artificial lakes must be followed imme¬
diately by a similar improvement of the upper Ohio,
80 IMPROVEMENT OP OHIO AND KANAWHA.
which will relieve you altogether of the necessity of
expending your supply of water in producing floods on
the lower Ohio. These floods will be sent from the
Monongahela and the Alleghany, and will only need to
he replenished and augmented, as they lengthen out, by
the contributions which will be furnished to them from
the Kanawha. Your care will then be confined to sup¬
plying the Kanawha alone.
To supply the flood which I deem abundantly suffi¬
cient for the Kanawha, you need only to fill the 37
miles of the river, from below Loop Creek Shoal to the
foot of Tyler, two feet deep, after the permanent depth
in the channels has been increased, as proposed, to
4 feet.
To gain this additional two feet will require the ex¬
penditure of water enough to raise the surface of the
river an average of very nearly 2h feet. (See Note F.)
The width of the Kanawha will still be taken at 590
feet, though it is, in fact, above Charleston, somewhat
less. The area of the surface of the 37 miles which I
propose to fill to an average depth of 2\ feet, from Loop
Creek Shoal to the foot of Tyler Shoal, will then be
37 miles X = 4 square miles.
5280 100 H
But the Meadow Lake, as we have seen, contains a
surface of 16.9 square miles.
It follows, then, that if we wish to raise the river an
average height of one foot, along a distance of 37 miles,
we must reduce the reservoir
IMPROVEMENT OF OHIO AND KANAWHA.
81
= t2A- of a foot,
16.9 100
or a fraction under 3 inches.
To raise the surface of 37 miles in length of the
Kanawha an average of 2i feet, we must, therefore,
reduce the surface of the reservoir—neglecting the small
fraction—71 inches.
The average available depth of the reservoir, found
by dividing the area of its surface in feet, into its avail¬
able contents in feet, has been shown to be 22! feet.
But, we have just seen that every time we produce a
flood six feet deep in the channels of the Kanawha,
extending 37 miles along the river, we reduce the
reservoir 7i inches. Consequently, to exhaust the 22!
feet of available depth of the reservoir, will allow the
production of
22/15x12 86 floods,
7.5
of the length and height proposed.
We find, therefore, that this single lake will supply
water enough to send coal boats, drawing ocer five feet,
through the Kanawha into the Ohio River, thirty-six times
a year.
By a similar computation, if we first reserve water
enough to maintain a permanent depth of four feet in
the channels, we shall still be able, with what will yet
remain, to produce twenty-two such floods every year.
I wish to make this point distinct. Therefore, clear¬
ing the subject of all computations, I will say, that the
single lake which I have surveyed, and of which survey I
82 IMPROVEMENT OF OHIO AND KANAWIIA.
herewith submit the results, will furnish water enough to
produce a permanent depth of four feet in all the channels
of the Kanawha, and in addition, twenty-two floods every
year, during common low water, of sufficient height to enable
coal boats, drawing five feet, to pass down the Kanawha to
the Ohio, in channels of which the minimum depth, from a
point seventeen miles above Charleston to the mouth of the
river, will be six feet.
If, then, following your example, the interests on the
upper Ohio should also construct reservoirs by means of
which to send their coal on artificial floods as far as the
mouth of the Kanawha, the interests on the Kanawha
will be able, from this lake alone, after providing for
permanently maintaining their own navigable depth of
four feet, to replenish those floods, even if they come
twenty-two times in a season, so as to sustain both the
Ohio and the Kanawha boats on their voyage down the
river to the markets below.
I would earnestly urge, therefore, a concert of action
between the common interests on the Kanawha and
those on the upper Ohio and Monongahela, in seeking
Congressional aid to enable them to carry on works,
having this common object to reach. Their interests
point to the same policy. Their action and efforts
should be simultaneous.
I hope presently to show that their interest extends,
and that their influence ought also to extend, to the
mouth of the Mississippi.
There is one other point worthy of notice in this con¬
nection.
IMPROVEMENT OF OHIO AND KANAWHA. 83
My proposition and wish have always been, since my
mind was first directed to the improvement of the
western rivers by the construction of artificial lakes, to
supply water enough to the upper Ohio to maintain its
depth constantly at five feet, in the beginning of the
enterprise, and, as the system is extended, constantly at
a higher stage.
In my work on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, I
have shown, from my measurements of the discharge of
the Ohio over the Wheeling bar, that to raise the water
there from its ordinary summer level to five feet, would
require a daily supply to be added to the natural flow
of about 700,000,000 cubic feet.
The lake which I have this year selected and sur¬
veyed, will contain, as we have seen, 10,722,000,000
cubic feet of available water—and the streams which
discharge their drainage into it wTill furnish an average
annual supply sufficient to fill the reservoir.
We may conclude, therefoi'e, that this artificial lake
would alone suffice to maintain the navigation of the
upper Ohio at the height of five feet, for a period of
10^722,000,000
700,000,000 '
It follows, then, that if four such sites as that which
has heen examined on Meadow River, can he selected on the
upper Ohio, they will alone he adequate to maintain the
navigation there, at five feet, for a period of about sixty
consecutive days of low water.
Now, the cost of the Meadow reservoir has been esti-
84
NATIONALITY OF THIS
W ORK.
mated in this lleport at $370,000, and I have given a
cross section of the site of the dam, and all the material
necessary to enable any other engineer to make his own
estimate, from the actual facts.
Four such reservoirs, including the damages and pay¬
ment for all the property inundated, would cost $1,480,000.
I do not submit this as a reliable estimate of the cost
of maintaining a permanent navigation of five feet on
the upper Ohio; but I offer it as the best estimate that
can be made by the application of analogous facts.
It has not yet been ascertained that equally good
sites for artificial lakes can be selected on the tributaries
of the Monongahela and Alleghany. All that the public
can be certain of, on that head is, that they have never
yet been sought. I can but express my individual
opinion, founded upon my personal observation; which
is, that they can, and will be shown to exist there,
whenever the investigation is made by an engineer
competent to select the sites and willing to find them.
NATIONALITY OF THIS WORK.
But there are other very great interests besides those
of the Kanawha and the Ohio concerned in the present
prosecution of this work. Indeed the interests are so
vast, and so widely extended, that those of the Kanawha
alone dwindle almost into insignificance in comparison
with them. From the site of every dam we build, on
the remotest tributary, to the mouth of the Mississippi,
NATIONALITY OF THIS WORK.
85
the entire region has a direct stake in the work, of a
commercial, a sanitary or a political character.
Even the floods which we shall be able to pour out of
this reservoir on Meadow River, will be sufficient in
volume to produce a sensible effect on the height of the
water in the Mississippi itself.
Let us look at the subject, irrelevant though it may
at first appear, in this relation.
The average width of the Mississippi, between banks,
obtained from numerous measurements made by myself
or under my direction, has been shown to be, from St.
Louis to its mouth, at high water, 3,236 feet.* The
volume of water contained in one mile of length of that
river, one foot in depth from the surface, when the
channel is just bank full, is, therefore,
5280 x 3236 = 17,086,080 cubic feet.
But the Meadow River Reservoir will hold
10,722,000,000 cubic feet of available water—sufficient
to raise the Mississippi when in nearly full flood, if
spread uniformly over its surface, one foot, for a space of
10,722,000,000 ift ,
17,086,080 = 628 m '
In other words, if the Bayous were all closed, and the
levees firm, and the water all confined, as assumed, to
the space between the banks of the river, the available
volume contained within this single reservoir would be equal
* See Ellet on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, for the dimensions,
discharge and other characteristics of these rivers.
86
NATIONALITY OF THIS WORK.
to a stratum one foot deep extending 628 miles along
the Mississippi.
Now, there must be many who will not fail to per¬
ceive, that if, by letting water from a reservoir into this
great river, its floods may be made to rise higher, by the
inverse operation—withholding the waters of many
tributary streams in reservoirs, at the time of impending
overflow, and reserving it there for the benefit of navi¬
gation, and allowing the reservoirs to fill up when the
Mississippi is rising, and to be exhausted in the summer
and autumn, when the Mississippi, like its tributaries, is
always low—the floods of that great river, produced by
the out-pouring of numerous smaller streams, may be
abated, and by the progressive extension of this system,
ultimately controlled.
This being, as I state, true for the Mississippi, it must
hold, a fortiori, good, also, for every smaller stream,
through the channel of which the water will flow on its
Avay from the reservoir to the common recipient, the
Mississippi.
The proper discussion of this subject, of controlling
the Mississippi, even briefly, would be foreign from my
present purpose and duties. But it is important, if the
company, complying with my recommendations, should
decide to make a proposition to Congress to improve the
Ohio, that the large interests requiring the protection of
the Mississippi from overflow, should have confidence
that this system of reservoirs, when widely extended,
will serve to keep back in the mountains, the topmost
stratum of the floods—that upper two feet which pro-
NATIONALITY OF THIS WOI1K. 87
duces the destruction of their levees—and thus protect
the coast.
I have discussed this question fully in my work on
the Mississippi and Ohio Itivers. I wish to allude here
only to two errors, which have found extensive circula¬
tion and are supposed to militate against my views.
It is gravely contended by many, that the widest pro¬
longation of the levees along the banks of the upper
Mississippi and its tributaries, can do no harm and will
add nothing to the height of the floods—because, it is
alleged, these levees concentrate the water of overflow
within the channel of the river, and thus confer on it
the power to excavate a deeper channel to accommodate
its increased volume. But this, I apprehend, is errone¬
ous. The increased power of the river to excavate a
deeper channel for itself, is, if true, a speculative power,
the value of which we have no means to estimate. It
is an assumed power—admitting its existence—which is
derived solely from the increased velocity of the current.
This increased velocity of the current, which is real and
can be approximately computed, is itself derived from
the increased height of the surface. But this increased
height it is which overflows the levees.
Hence, for the hope, based upon this speculation, that
by concentrating the waters of overflow within a nar¬
rower breadth, the Mississippi will be made, first to rise
higher; then, as a consequence, to run faster; and then
to scour its channel deeper, and so gradually let itself
down into its deeper bed, thus produced; planters are
advised to sacrifice their present estates and submit to
88
NATIONALITY OF THIS WORK.
their present inundation, that future generations may
reap a sufficient reward in the shape of a conjecturally
deepened channel, and the speculative relief which will
then be obtained.
If the fact is once understood, that the water which
is compressed between the levees must first rise higher
to get vent, and so submerge the levees before it can be
made to flow faster, and thus gain the power to scour
deeper, the States of the lower Mississippi will be better
disposed to unite Avith those above in a plan calculated
to hold the destructive portion of the surplus waters
back—to substitute new lakes in the mountains to per¬
form the natural functions of the lakes Avhich are now
drained or to be drained, in the swamps.
I cannot pursue this subject here. But I am com¬
pelled to conclude, that the system Avhich I recommend
to you possesses all the elements which can be needed
to clothe it with the characteristics of nationality. If
once properly appreciated, the voice and the vote of the
North and the South can be concentrated on a measure
that will simultaneously protect the commerce of the
North against droughts, and the estates of the South
against inundations; and, when united, as they will be,
Avhere is the power to resist their decision \
From the healthful mountains of Virginia and Penn¬
sylvania, to the fertile coasts of Louisiana, this water,
to be held back while the floods are passing off below,
and then emitted from numerous artificial lakes into
streams of which the navigation is failing, will do good
service all the Avay. It Avill convey health to the adja-
NATIONALITY OF TIIIS WORK. SI)
cent banks as it flows on, displacing the stagnant
water from the pools. It will impart a sensible coolness
to the air near the channels through which it passes.
It will supply the cities on the banks of the river with
the purest water, which has been cooled in lakes level
with the tops of the Alleghany Mountains. It will sup¬
port the navigation in the summer and prevent inunda¬
tions in the winter throughout and along this vast reach
of natural canals. This is the tendency and this the
progressive effect of the system which I propose.
I trust that such a proposition will be deemed worthy
of careful consideration and encouragement by the pre¬
sent statesmen of the country ; and that, when it shall
have so far made its way into your own confidence as to
induce your Company to make the application for Con¬
gressional aid, to illustrate its efficiency by a single
example, it may not be laid aside as chimerical, by those
able representatives, whose support and confidence you
will then need, as I now need yours.
This branch of my subject, I well know, involves
grave questions far beyond the recognized range of an
engineer's duties and studies.
I will venture, however, to make here one suggestion,
without intending to infringe ever so little on the pro¬
blem involving the constitutional power of the Federal
Government to engage in a general system of internal
improvements. All now concur in the opinion that,
lawful or unlawful, the assumption and exercise of such
a general power would at least be inexpedient. Waiving,
therefore, I say, that question, I submit for the consider-
12
00 NATIONALITY OF THIS WORK.
ation of the Company, and of statesmen of the most
conservative instincts, whether, in view of the almost
boundless value of the system of improvement which I
have projected, and, I think, demonstrated to be practi¬
cable, it is not worthy of a fair trial for the purpose of
ascertaining, in a form which will satisfy the country,
whether it possesses the intrinsic merits claimed for it
by its originator, or not.
It is scarcely reasonable that a Company, having only
limited local objects of its own to promote, should be
left to assume all this expense and struggle with this
load, alone and unaided; when it is apparent, that, if
successful, their expenditures and efforts will add hun¬
dreds of times more to the general good of the country,
than they will promote their own immediate, local and
peculiar advantage.
I would suggest, therefore, most respectfully, that the
Company would be justifiable in tendering a proposition
to Congress, in which they may offer to construct one or
more reservoirs on the tributaries of the Great Kanawha,
of sufficient aggregate capacity to produce a given per¬
manent depth in the Ohio River, from the mouth of the
Kanawha to Cincinnati, for a stipulated sum to be paid
to them only after they shall have accomplished their
undertaking, in compliance with such rules and tests as
Congress may prescribe.
In this form, no political or constitutional principle, I
presume, can be violated. No abuse can spring out of
it; no general precedent can be made of it. Congress
will be petitioned to pay a certain moderate sum, in the
DIFFICULTIES OF TIIIS WORK.
91
event that you establish at your own cost and risk, the
success of a great and inestimably valuable system of
improvement, by which all the navigable rivers of the
country may he protected against injurious droughts,
and the lands along their courses against injurious floods.
My impression is that such a proposition, in this form,
will command a very general support. The practicability
of the system which I propose being thus once experi¬
mentally proven, its cost will be found to be not too
great for the separate States, and in some instances
private companies to encounter, and its indefinite exten¬
sion, without the further intervention of the Federal
Government, will probably thus be secured.
A similar appropriation for the Upper Ohio, subject
to equivalent restrictions, would relieve the proposition
of the objection that it partakes in any degree of a local
character. The water sent down from the Monongahela
would improve the navigation of the Ohio below the
mouth of the Kanawha; and the contribution from the
Kanawha would serve to replenish the wave sent down
from the Monongahela.
COMPARATIVE DIFFICULTIES OF THIS WORK.
One of the many obstacles which I have been obliged
to surmount in my efforts to introduce this system of
improving rivers by means of reservoirs, is the vague
impression which the public mind has received of the
immensity of the work required for its accomplishment.
For the purpose of removing this impression, I will com-
92 DIFFICULTIES OF THIS WORK.
pare the undertaking which I here propose with -some
others, of a different class, which are more familiar
to the mind, and which have been or will be accom¬
plished. It may serve a useful purpose, too, in passing,
to remind the reader that the only work required to
form an artificial lake, in a properly selected site, is a
single wall or mound across the outlet of some stream of
sufficient magnitude to furnish the water needed to fill it.
That is all. The remainder of the work is done by
Nature.
Let us now compare the volume of water contained
in the Kanawha lliver with that which was pumped out
of Haarlem Lake by three steam engines, each of 400
horses power, and then driven through a canal 40 miles
long, excavated for the purpose, to the sea.
I have already shown, that in order to raise the
Kanawha River, from below Loop Creek Shoal to the
Ohio, 871 miles, an average height of one foot, will
require that we pour into it
272,895,480 cubic feet
of water.
Now, the three engines used in the drainage of Haar¬
lem Lake lifted about 832,000,000 cubic metres, or
29,360,000,000 cubic feet
of water, in 19{ months — or at the rate of
1,560,000,000 cubic feet per month—
nearly enough to fill the Kanawha River as far as it is
proposed to make it navigable, one foot deep six times
DIFFICULTIES OF THIS WORK.
93
in a month during the whole period the engines were at
work.
But we have here, to fill the Kanawha, no water to
pump up. We have only a few gates conveniently
arranged in a stone wall, to open, and the water will
run out itself and fill up the river for us. There can
assuredly be no serious difficulty in doing that.
Again: The only work or structure required to con¬
vert the meadows of Meadow River into a sufficient
lake to furnish the water needed to uphold the naviga¬
tion of the Kanawha, in the manner and to the extent
proposed, is a dam 68 feet high, and which, if made of
earth, and 100 feet wide at the surface of the water,
and 300 feet wide at the bottom, will contain less than
290,000 cubic yards. Now, this is but about one-half
the quantity of material required to form a single bank
which it is proposed to raise across one of the gorges,
and that by no means the largest, on the line of the
Covington and Ohio Railroad.
It is, indeed, not much more than one-third the quan¬
tity that will be required to cross a single ravine, yet to
be filled, on the line of the Virginia Central Road.
I might multiply illustrations. But it seems to me
that I have demonstrated the practicability of this
mode of improving the western rivers as far as it is
possible to do so, without actually forming a lake and
showing its power by the effects. That must be our
future aim.
The results of my labors under your authority are
now before you, and the control of this great question,
94 DIFFICULTIES OF TIIIS WOIIK.
as far as it affects the interests of your Company, passes
out of my hands into your own.
I am only too sensible of the imperfections and inade¬
quacy of my Report.
The truth is, the proposition is so grand in its fea¬
tures and consequences; it affects so many, so great and
such diverse interests; it involves so many scientific
and practical considerations, that it cannot possibly be
dealt with briefly and fully at the same time. I have
been forced, therefore, to neglect many things well
worthy, each, of separate and serious discussion.
I have scarcely alluded to the five great navigable
tributaries of the Kanawha, each of which is susceptible
of material, and some of them, probably, of great im¬
provement, by this system, and which must ultimately
and incidentally be improved by it. I have passed by,
altogether, the greater tributaries of the Ohio, which,
like the Kanawha, will be improved by the same process,
and, in being so improved, will benefit both the Ohio
and the Kanawha.
I have not ventured to discuss at all the many details
of construction for the dam, and the opening of the
channels of the Kanawha. I have not alluded to the
local uses that can be made of the great lake which I
propose to construct on Meadow River, or the means of
connecting it with the Covington and Ohio Railroad;
and thus furnishing an outlet to market for the wide
extent of mountainous country which may trade towards
it, and over its surface. I have not been able to discuss the
effect which given quantities of water would produce on
difficulties of this work.
95
the depth or velocity in the channels through the worst
shoals of the Kanawha. Neither have I ventured to
consider at all the precise proposition which I think the
Company might prudently make to Congress for the im¬
provement of the Ohio River.
I had not the time to devote to these subjects if I had
been willing to swell a Report, already too long, by dis¬
cussing them.
Enough, however, I trust has been done, and fairly
presented, to enable your Company to decide whether
the Kanawha shall be improved in the mode which I
recommend, in connection with the Ohio, or whether it
shall be considered as an independent navigation, and
suffered to stand alone: and, finally, whether this great
system of river improvement shall be initiated in Vir¬
ginia, or left for some other community to begin.
Washington, D. C.,
October 20, 1858.
NOTE S.
13
NOTES.
NOTE A.
Mr. Fisk, in his Report of 1854, has presented the information con¬
tained in the detailed report of Mr. Gill to myself, in 1838, in a very
convenient shape, by dividing the river into three sections, as follows:—
The upper section; extending from"!
the foot of "the falls" to the foot j
of "Loup Creek Shoal" J
Distance.
■
Fall.
22iVo
Average fall
per mile.
a r> 2
41 off
The middle section; extending"!
thence to the foot of "Witcher's >
Creek Shoal" J
oo
3-
36
19 2
AIffff
The lower section; extending")
thence to the mouth of the river j
10 iff
49,7ff8ff
0 7 1
UTffff
Totals
O^Tff
lOljffff
The names of the several shoals or ripples; the distance of the head
of each from the mouth of the river; the distance across, and fall
at each; and also the length and fall of each of the pools between the
shoals or ripples, on each of the " three sections," are as follows:—
on the upper section.
Distance, fall, and
Distance, fall, and depth along
depth along the
the ripples and shoals, viz:
o j*
P — u
d 2 ®
river pools, viz:
ft °
Dist.
Fall.
Depth.
Distance.
Fall.
Depth.
Miles.
Miles.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Foot of the Great Falls .
94.20
...
...
Thence along the river .
0.83
'o.10
To head of Long Shoal .
9 3.37
4,224
10.28
3 to 4
Thence along the river .
...
I.32
0.6 •
to 6
To head of Rock Ripple
91.25
*264
O.62
2J
Thence along the river .
...
0.25
0>
2£ to 6
...
To head of Loup Creek
Shoal
90.®6
...
8,712
10.'2
1 to 5
2.40
I.'2
...(
13,200
21.02
2.50
21.02
...{
=2.50 miles.
4.90
22.14
100 NOTES.
ON TIIE MIDDLE SECTION.
O
Distance, fall, and
Distance, fall, and depth along
o
V
depth along tho
the ripples and shoals, viz:
« S o
river pool
s, viz:
p-
Dist.
Fall.
Depth.
Distance.
Fall.
Depth.
Mile-.
Miles.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Foot of Loup Creek Shoal
89.30
Thence along the river .
1.9°
O.50
3 to 11
To head of Island Ripple
87.40
2,640
i'.'7
3 to 5
Thence along the river .
i.'45
J.29
7 to 15
To head of Lyken's Shoal
85.46
...
2,376
6.02
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
...
0.3°
0.'9
8
...
To head of Staton's Run
Shoal
84.™
264
0."
3
Thence along the river .
o.80
o.09
8
To head of Harvey's Shoal
S3.83
...
1,320
3.76
2J to 31
Thence along the river .
0.'°
0.'29
8 to 10
...
To head of Hunter's Shoal
83.
1,056
)
1 54
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
0.75
0.5'
21 to 3
and 5
; -
...
To head of Windsor's
Shoal
82.15
...
1,320
o.78
1^ to
Thence along the river .
...
2.60
1.08
8 to 15
...
To head of Paint Creek
Shoal
79.30
...
...
1,320
5.33
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
3.™
.85
6 to 16
To head of Bonsman's
Island Ripple .
75.35
2,112
0.86
2\ to 5
Thence along the river .
0.90
o.03
9 to 15
...
To head of Cabin Creek
Shoal
74.06
2,376
5.15
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
...
2.70
l.os
5 to 10
To head of Witcher's
Creek Shoal
70.90
...
2,112
4."
3 to 4
15.60
5.92
16,896
30.0S
3.20
30.08
X
=3.20 miles.
18.80
36.
ON
THE
LOWER
SECTION.
o ^
Distance, fall, and
Distance, fall, and depth along
© °
depth along the
the ripples and shoals, viz:
o St
river pools, viz:
ao ° k
g S'C
Dist.
Fall.
Depth.
Distance.
Fall.
Depth.
Miles.
Miles.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet
Feet.
Foot of Witcher's Creek
Shoal
70.60
...
...
Thence along the river .
2.40
I.03
3 to 6
...
To head of Catfish Shoal
68.10
528
i.19
3
Thence along the river .
10.80
0.5'
5 to 16
To head of Elk Shoal .
57."20
1,848
2.SI
2 to 4
Thence along the river .
i.62
0.29
4 to 10
To head of Two Mile Shoal
55.33
...
1,452
2.84
3 to 6
Thence along the river .
0.42
o.09
5 to 8
NOTES.
ON TIIE LOWER SECTION —
continued.
101
°
instance, fall, and
Distance, fall, and depth along
O °
depth along the
the ripples and shoals, viz :
•
Cfl 0 if
river pools, viz:
.2 !■-
Dist.
Fall.
Depth.
Distance.
Fall.
Depth.
Miles.
Miles.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
Feet.
To head of Island Shoal
54."
1,980
2.22
3 to 4
Thence along the river .
...
o.73
0.17
5 to 8
To head of Tyler's Shoal
53.53
...
4,356
4.22
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
i.£°
I.31
3 to 5
To head of Ripple . .
50.*°
...
264
o.'59
H
Thence along the river .
2.65
I.5'
3 to 5
...
...
To head of Peeled Maple
Shoal
48.10
792
0.67
3
Thence along the river .
5.61
i'.'16
3 to 5
...
To head of Johnson's
Shoal
42.33
5,544
5.09
3 to 7
Thence along the river .
2.25
0.61
3| to 8
...
...
...
To head of Taeket's Shoal
39.03
2,904
2.20
to 3
Thence along the river .
b!35
o.91
3 to 16
To head of Red House
Shoal
32.13
...
1,848
3.08
2 to 3
Thence along the river .
...
1,66
o.58
3 to 6
To head of Ripple . .
30.13
1,584
0.54
2^ to 4
Thence along the river .
l.M
o.'47
3 to 9
...
...
To head of Hurricane
Ripple
28.53
...
792
o.60
3 to 3^
Thence along the river .
i'.'15
0.89
3 to 9
To head of Ripple . .
27.23
2,112
O.59
2£ to 3
Thence along the river .
O.80
o.27
3 to 4
...
To head of Ripple . .
26.'03
528
o.'09
2|
Thence along the river .
2.93
o.31
3 to 7
To head of Knob Shoal .
22.98
...
...
2,904
2.31
2j to 3
Thence along the river .
1.20
0."
3 to 8
To head of Buffalo Shoal
21>
528
i>
Thence along the river .
2.00
i .3o
2 to 5
To head of Ripple
19."
...
528
o>
2 to 2j
Thence along the river .
O.'20
0.w
3 to 5
...
To head of Ripple . .
18.83
528
o.35
21
Thence along the river .
o.43
o.19
21 to 6
To head of Ripple
18.23
264
o.35
21
Thence along the river .
o.'37
0."
3 to 4
To head of Ripple
17.'86
396
b.41
3
Thence along the river .
2.45
o.'68
3 to 10
...
To head of Arbuckle's
Shoal
15.31
...
3,168
i.97
2 to 4
Thence along the river .
3.25
O.59
4 to 10
To head of 13 Mile Shoal
ll.«
1,056
r.'22
2 to 4
Thence along the river .
0.70
o.'02
3 to 13
To head of Ripple . .
10.59
*528
b.16
21 to 3 2
Thence along the river .
O.50
0.l2,2i to 5
Thence along the river to
the Ohio River . . .
9."
0.85
3 to 19
63.60
14.07
J
36,432
35.71
6.90
35.71
i
=6.90 miles.
70.50
49.78
102
NOTES.
NOTE 13.
The following passage is taken from Col. Cotton's account of the
public works of India:—
Col. Cotton states that he has heard it said that the plan of making
occasional floods in rivers, by drawing water from lakes, as is now done
in Minnesota and Maine, has been long practised in Russia; but he
gives no particulars. I need not quote his kind remarks on my own
labors. He enters, however, at great length into the discussion of
plans for the supply of the Godavery, the Jumna, and even the Ganges,
and gives estimates to demonstrate that water enough may be collected
on the tributaries of those streams to supply their navigation, for much
smaller sums than would suffice in this country—the value of labor in
India being very much less than it is in any part of the United States.
The government, I am informed by Lieut. Haig, an intelligent and
capable engineer of the Indian topographical corps, is now engaged in
the investigation of this great problem by actual surveys, which, so far
as they have progressed, have sustained the views promulgated in 1854
by Col. Cotton.
I copy the following curious passage from Col. Cotton's work—which
I consider an interesting illustration of the perversity with which the
public mind sometimes rejects practical truths, while it seizes with
avidity the most absurd propositions.
"This mode of improving the navigation of Indian rivers has been
singularly lost sight of; and what makes it still more remarkable, is,
that the abstraction of water from navigated rivers for purposes of
irrigation, to the endangering of the navigation, has to a certain extent
aroused attention." .... "A few years ago an experiment was made
in the Jumna, to try what effect the abstraction of the water had upon
that river. By merely closing the canals that lead from it, for four
days in the dry season, the water in the river was raised lj feet, and
would probably have risen more had the canals been kept closed for a
longer time." .... "The quantity turned into it (the Jumna, by
closing the canals) was about half a million cubic yards per hour,
showing that 12,000,000 cubic yards a day, would in a low state of the
NOTES.
103
river have afforded an additional depth of 1| feet." .... "This addi¬
tional depth would make the difference between a stream scarcely navi¬
gable, and one quite available even for steamers."
NOTE C.
The results of my survey of the railroad line along Meadow and
Gauley Rivers in 1838, were not included in my Report of that year.
My Report, as published, was barely completed in time to be submitted
to the Board of Directors a few days before the meeting of the stock¬
holders in December, while the surveys of the Gauley and Meadow
River line were still in progress. The Report of the Assistant Engi¬
neer, Mr. Waller, if ever made, I understand is not now to be found in
the office of the Company.
I have, however, recently met with a letter from Mr. Waller to Mr.
Wm. Carnifex, written immediately after the completion of his line to
the mouth of Gauley, and containing a statement of
" The distances and fall from different points on Meadow and Gauley
Rivers," and dated January 10, 1839, as follows :—
Milos.
Feet fall.
From summit of Meadow Mountain to Big Clear Creek
oo
171
From Big Clear Creek (mouth of) to Mill Creek .
n
1
From Mill Creek to Laurel Creek ....
if
2
From Laurel Creek to Big Sewell Creek
3
11
From Big Sewell Creek to Meadow Creek .
9 7
A
19
From Meadow Creek to Cook's Mill ....
11
413
From Cook's Mill to Bracken's Creek ....
n
67
From Bracken's Creek to Angling's Creek .
H
72
From Angling's Creek to Arrowwood Creek
4f
201
From Arrowwood Creek to Headrick's Run
1
2
50
From Headrick's Run to mouth of Meadow River
H
378
From mouth of Meadow River to Peter's Creek (on
Gauley River)
"A
398
From Peter's Creek to Elk Creek ....
GO
187
From Elk Creek to mouth of Gauley River .
9*
36
104
NOTES.
The above is a copy of Mr. Waller's list of heights and distances.
By this statement, which I am sure may be relied on as correct, the
mouth of Big Clear Creek—which is, in fact, the real prolongation of
Meadow River—is above the mouth of Gauley . . . 1835 feet.
Add, for the depth of the lake at the mouth of Big Clear
Creek ......... 54 "
Add, elevation of low water at the mouth of Gauley, above tide 659 "
Surface of the reservoir above tide ..... 2548 "
Summit of the Alleghany Mountain between Crow's and
the White Sulphur Springs ...... 2325 "
Elevation of the proposed lake above the summit of the
Alleghany Mountain, is 223 "
Again : The level of the lake is, above tide . . . 2548 feet.
New River at the mouth of the Greenbrier River is, above tide 1341 "
Elevation of the lake above the mouth of Greenbrier . 1144 feet.
At one point, near the head of Lick Creek, a tributary of New River,
where the prolongation of the spur of Big Sewell runs out, before it
rises again to form Keeney's Knob, the ascent from the lake to the
summit of the narrow ridge which separates it from the waters of New
River, is quite small. It would not be very difficult at this point to drain
a portion of the lake into New River, and if the height of the dam was
moderately increased, to establish there an immense and valuable water
power, and feed the Kanawha from the lake through the gorge of New
River.
The reservoir might also be drained, if desirable, by a tunnel of
moderate cost, on the opposite side of the lake, into the waters of
Muddy Creek, a tributary of the Greenbrier.
The following facts may be of some interest:—
Mouth of Big Clear Creek at low water, is . . . above tide
Little Clear Creek, opposite Mr. Macfarland's house, is "
The meadows, opposite Mr. Cralle's house, is . "
The surface of the James and Kanawha Turnpike "
The meadows, opposite Mr. Cabell's . . "
Feet.
. 2494
. 2512
. 2509
. 2512
. 2524
NOTES.
105
NOTE D.
The following table contains the widths of the Ohio River, measured
at common low water, in September, 1858 :—
Depth of water on Letart Shoal, said to be 21 inches: on Eight-
mile Shoal, 24 inches.
surface widths.
Feot.
Pomeroy Landing, above Mr. Horton's dwelling . . . 637
West Columbia, quarter mile above ..... 132
Eigiit-Mile, half mile below ...... 851
Point Pleasant, at Ferry Landing 989
Galliopolis, at Ferry Landing 1017
Carrion Ripple, above Clipper Mill ..... 680
Raccoon Island, above head of . . . . .1132
Riggs' Woodyard 930
IIanly's Landing 773
Wright's Landing 1003
Straight Ripple, foot of 896
Swann Creek 1102
Jenkins' House, opposite, on gravel beach . . . .941
Green bottom Ripple 1089
Millersport . 965
Haskellsville 1061
Ansell's Farm 1035
Jillett's Landing 1020
Dog-ham Bar, below 953
Paddy's Creek, about one mile above Guyandotte . . 1246
Guyandotte Bar, below mouth of Guyandotte River . . 1205
Average width of the Ohio, by 21 observations . . . 965
From numerous observations, it appears that the surface width of
the Ohio, above given, would be increased from eight to ten feet on
each shore, by the addition of two feet to the height of the water.
14
106
NOTES.
NOTE E.
Extracts from a paper by Mr. Elwood Morris, Civil Engineer,
treating of the available drainage from a given area.
"The growth of the large towns of Great Britain, and the inadequacy
of the old methods of water supply in many of them, have led to the
most minute and accurate examinations of the quantity and ratio of
annual rain-fall available in reservoirs, from the drainage of gathering
grounds of known area; and these examinations have resulted in de¬
monstrating that a very large proportion of the annual rain-fall—far
exceeding one-half in many instances—is collectable in reservoirs even
from flat and cultivated sites. ■ •
" This great fact, that more than half the annual downfall of rain
is always collectable from ordinarily impervious gathering grounds, has
been proven not only by elaborate surveys, but by the actual construc¬
tion and successful working for years of many important gravitation
water works in Great Britain, with the results of which every civil
engineer is, or ought to be, acquainted.
" In every instance of European experience in the drainage to reser¬
voirs situated in the coal measures—as will be all that may be placed
on the heads of the Ohio River—the available annual rain-fall has
exceeded one-half of its vertical depth by the gauge, and has never
been less than two feet.
" The two reservoirs supplying the summit level of the Peak Forest
Canal, in Derbyshire, contain 101,701,210 cubic feet, and drain 11
square miles of gathering ground; they use only the flood waters, the
ordinary flow passing regularly to the mills below. One of them,
erected more than half a century since, has never failed to fill from the
surplus of floods alone. In dry years the annual rain-fall is 33 inches,
and it is found that they always collect 24 inches vertical from the
whole surface of their gathering grounds, or seventy-two per cent.
" The Corporation of Manchester has constructed several reservoirs
containing COO millions of cubic feet of water, and draining an area of
2!) square miles. They have bound themselves to furnish the mill
NOTES.
107
owners below, an annual quantity equal to 31 vertical inches of the
rain-fall upon the gathering ground—besides supplying the wants of
the City of Manchester*
"At the Paisley Water Works, experience has shown, that from 54
inches of annual rain-fall, 36 inches accumulates in the reservoir, or
sixty-six per cent.
"At Greenock, Shaw's Water Works, from an annual rain-fall of 65
inches, 42 inches vertical, or sixty-four per cent., is found to be avail¬
able in the reservoirs.
" Another point of consequence has been determined in recent reser¬
voir experience, in Scotland, viz., that no aquatic plants grow where
the water is over 12 feet deep, f
"In deep reservoirs, therefore, there can be no decaying vegetable
matter to affect the public health."
TABLE OF RAIN-FALL ANNUALLY COLLECTABLE FROM
GATHERING GROUNDS.
No.
NAME OF DRAINAGE AREA.
3
a
'3 •»
— <v
H "o
s a
a ~
<
Drainage flowing
away in inches.
Ratio, or per cent,
of the rain which
drains off.
AUTHORITIES.
1
Bann Reservoirs (moorland) . .
72
48
66
-J
2
Greenock (flat moor) ....
GO
41
68
3
Bate (low country)
45
24
53
4
Glencorse (Pentland hills)
37
22
60
Beardmore
5
Belmont (moorland), 1843 . .
63
51
80
and
6
" " 1844 . .
50
33
67
Hughes.
7
" " 1845 . .
55
41
75
8
" " 1816 . .
50
33
67
9
Longendale, 1846
81
Bateman.
10
Paisley Water Works . . .
5t
36
66
Stirratt.
11
Glasgow " " ....
50
30
60
C. E. & A. Journal
12
Rivington Pike in 1847 and 1848
64
40
63
13
Turton and Entwistle, 1836 . .
46
41
89
• Hughes.
14
" " 1837 . .
48
39
81
15
Greenock, Shaw's Water Works .
65
42
64
Stirratt.
16
Peak Forest Summit
33
24
72
Homersham.
!17
Longendale in 1845
60
40
66
Bateman.
* Homersham's Report. Journal Soe. of Arts, London, 1855.
f Stirratt on the Gathering Grounds of Scotland. C. E. and A. Journal,
vol. xiv. p. 92.
10S NOTES.
The facts in the above table are taken from Hughes' water-works,
for the purpose of showing examples in which the drainage into the
reservoir exceeds the ratio assumed in my report. I do not quote cases
in which the amount collected is less than I have assumed, because I
think it would be difficult to find a site more favorable to a large ratio
than that ofl'ered by the location of the Meadow Reservoir. If 65 or
TO per cent, is realized anywhere, it appears to me that as much or
more ought to be obtained in that lake.
NOTE F.
The reader will find in the following pages the rise of the river above
low water at the head and foot of the Kanawha Shoals, in different
stages of its surface—proceeding from the proposed head of navigation
to the Ohio River. June 23, 1858.
Lyken's Siioal . . .
. Head
of shoal . .
. not observed.
Foot
" (above
low
water) 1.66 foot.
Harvey's Siioal . .
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) 1.18 foot.
Foot
ft
it
1.75 "
Paint Creek Siioal .
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) foot.
Foot
It
ft
1.81 "
Cabin Creek Sitoal .
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) 1.13 foot.
Foot
<<
It
1.40 "
Witciier's Shoal . .
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) foot.
Foot
it
It
1.86 "
Cat Fisii Siioal . .
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) 1.45 foot.
Foot
it
it
1.99 "
Elk Shoal ....
. Head
of shoal (above
low
water) 1.50 foot.
Foot
It
tt
, 1.70 "
Special attention should be given to the fact that the rise at the
head of Elk, 1.50 foot, is essentially maintained up to the foot of Cabin
NOTES.
109
Creek Shoal, seventeen miles above Charleston. Above that point we
cannot obtain quite as much depth on the worst bars, with the same
volume of water, without reducing the width of the channel.
Continuing on below Charleston, it will be seen that we find no
water as low as that which we have at the head of Elk Shoal, excepting
along the shoals immediately below Elk, where the rise is almost the
same as it is at the head of Elk. It will also be perceived that below
Tyler there are but two points—the head of Johnson and the head of
Tacket's Shoals—where the rise due to the same volume of water is
not very nearly 50 per cent, greater than it is at the head of Elk.
These facts are important, for they teach us that when we have
filled up the channels from the pool above Lyken's Shoal, to the foot
of Tyler, to any given height, we may be assured that we can count
on that and a still greater depth of water over all the other shoals of
the Kanawha.
I may say here, moreover, what was neglected in the text of my
Report, that there will be no difficulty in drawing the water rapidly
enough from the proposed lake on Meadow River, to produce a depth
of six or seven feet for navigation on any of the shoals, above or below
Charleston ; and that there will be no waste of water consequent on
drawing it so rapidly. The only difference will be that the wave, to
satisfy the wants of the navigation above Witcher's Creek, must be
made higher and shorter than would be needed on the shoals below.
If we were discussing here the question of a permanent navigation of
six feet, it would be otherwise: then, in that case, the steepness and
height of the upper shoals would lead to a positive increased consump¬
tion of water. But in merely producing a sufficient wave, it does not.
We will continue the account of the rises at the head and foot of the
shoals below Charleston.
Elk Shoal ..... Head of shoal (above low water) 1.50 foot.
Foot " " 1.70 "
Young Two Mile . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 1.50 foot
(Intermediate points not observed.)
Old Two Mile .... Foot of shoal (above low water) 1.50 foot.
no
NOTES.
Tyler Siioal .... Head of shoal (above low water) 1.60 foot.
Foot " " 2.80 feet.
Newcomer's (ripple) . . Ilead of ripple (above low water) 2 40 feet.
Foot " " 2.50 "
Peeled Maple (ripple) . Head of shoal (above low water) 2.60 feet.
Foot " " 2.90 "
Much of the space along the Kanawha, below the foot of Tyler's
Shoal, and thence on to Coal River, in which Peeled Maple and New¬
comer's Ripples are found, presents a great deal of shallow water—
described in the survey as the "Shallows." This part of the river
may be easily improved on any of the plans proposed. But by the
plan of reservoirs, these " shallows," as well as the two principal rip¬
ples in them, will disappear. The shallows and ripples will be literally
drowned out. We have only to increase the depth some eighteen
inches, at the head of Elk, by an artificial supply, to be sure of
increasing it two and a half feet on Peeled Maple.
Johnson Shoal . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 1.70 foot.
Foot " " 3.10 feet.
Packet's Shoal . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 1.90 foot.
Foot " " 3.50 feet.
There is a long and deep pool below Packet's Shoal, which accounts
for the great rise of the water, which is two and a quarter times the
rise at the head of Elk, at the foot of that shoal.
Red House Siioal . . Head of shoal (above low water) 2.80 feet.
Foot " " 3.10 "
This shoal, Red House, will almost disappear when we furnish a
sufficient quantity of water to produce a rise of two feet at the head of
Elk. Its channel will require very little work, excepting to aid the
extreme low water navigation which has always been contemplated.
Little Hurricane Ripple Rise of water 3.10 feet.
Washington Bar
Head of (above low water) 2.90 feet.
Foot of (1400 feet below) " 3.30 "
NOTES.
Ill
Coal Branch .... Rise at mouth of (above low water) 2.80 feet.
Big Hurricane Rumple . Rise of water on (above low water) 2.80 feet.
The next most difficult point, so far as regards the rise of the water
due to a given volume, is—
Knob Siioal Head of shoal (above low water) 2.00 feet.
Foot " " 2.70 "
Buffalo Siioal . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 2.50 feet.
Foot " " 2.90 "
Debby's Dam .... Head of ripple (above low water) 2.70 feet.
Eighteen Mile Ripple, and all the shoal places below, were at this
time affected by back water from the Ohio. Enough is known, how¬
ever, to convince us that our care need only be to give a sufficient
depth at the head of Elk Shoal, in order to secure everywhere below
that point, and seventeen miles above it, an equal or greater depth.
It is to be understood that all the foregoing observations coincide with
a rise of 1.50 foot at the head of Elk Shoal. Care was taken to find
a time for the measurements when the river was nearly stationary—or
rising or falling regularly and slowly.
The following facts were obtained on another occasion, when the
surface stood, at the head of Elk Shoal, 2.07 feet above low water.
Observations on the rise of the water at the head and foot of some of
the shoals. June 2, 1858.
After gauging the river below Charleston, of which measurement
the result is given at page 53 of the Report, aided by Mr. Byers, I
continued down the Kanawha, taking the height of the surface at the
head and foot of each shoal.
Elk Siioal Head of shoal (above low water) 2.07 feet.
Foot " " 2.42 "
Two Mile Siioal . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 2.01 feet.
(Intermediate points not obtained.)
112
NOTES.
Island Siioal .... Foot of shoal (above low water) 2.47 feet.
Tyler Shoal .... Head of shoal (above low water) 2.43 feet.
Foot " " 4.08 "
New Comer's Ripi>le . Head of ripple (above low water) 3.73 feet.
Foot, not obtained.
(Shallows, essentially drowned out.)
Peeled Madle Riddle . Head of ripple (above low water) 3.93 feet.
Foot " " 4.13 "
The backwater from the Ohio prevented the extension of these
observations to the shoals below.
Observations on the rise of the water at the head and foot of the shoals
continued. June 11, 1858.
Elk Siioal Head of shoal (above low water) 2.30 feet.
Foot of (2000 feet below) " 2.72 "
Young Two Mile Shoal Head of shoal (above low water) 2.11 feet.
(Intermediate points not obtained.)
Old Two Mile Siioal . (200 feet above foot of) " 2.45 feet.
Tyler Shoal .... Head of shoal (above low water) 2.79 feet.
Foot " " 4.64 "
New Comer's Riddle . Head of ripple (above low water) 4.27 feet.
Foot " " 4 47 "
We perceive, here, that when there is a rise of 2.30 feet at the head
of Elk, not only the "shallows" but also the ripples between Tyler
and Johnson are nearly drowned out.
Peeled Madle Riddle . Head of ripple (above low water) 4.50 feet.
Foot " " 4.87 "
June 12, 1858. Over night the river fell TV<j of a foot- One-fourth
of a mile below the mouth of Coal River the surface on the morning of
the 12th was 3.76 feet above low water.
NOTES.
113
Johnson's Shoal . . . Head of shoal (above low water) 2.91 feet.
Foot of (1000 feet below) " 4.34 "
Middle of pool below Johnson " 4.41 "
I do not introduce the observation made at Tacket's Shoal. At Red
House, the next shoal below, the influence of the backwater from the
Ohio was decided, and I suspected its effect at Tacket's.
Observations on the rise of the water on the shoals. June
10, 1858.
Elk Shoal
Head of shoal (above low water)
2.55 feet.
Foot (2000 feet below) "
3.09 "
Young Two Mile Siioal
Head of shoal (above low water)
2 45 feet.
Old Two Mile . . . .
Foot (200 feet above) "
2.80 feet.
Island and Two Mile .
(a point between these shoals)
2.5G feet.
Island Shoal ....
Foot of (500 below) "
3.33 feet.
Tvler Shoal . . . .
Head of shoal "
3.20 feet.
The difficulties to be overcome in feeding the river are found, as it
will be readily seen, from the head of Elk to the head of Tyler Shoal—
a distance of 3f miles. In this distance are encountered Elk, Young
Two Mile, Two Mile and Island Shoals—all requiring nearly as great
a supply of water as is needed for Elk. Young Two Mile, which
requires a shade more, can be easily reduced.
It must be observed that the rise at the foot of every shoal is more
or less dependent on the distance and condition of the next shoal or
shoals below it; and the success of the work, consequently, will exact
an intelligent attention to these influences in opening the channels.
15
114
NOTES.
NOTE G.
It is proper to explain that this Report, in compliance with the wish
of the President, was hurriedly completed, for the purpose of submit¬
ting the results of my investigations, as far as they were computed, to
the meeting of the stockholders, to be held in Richmond, the 25th
of October.
In order to accomplish this object, I was compelled to defer com¬
municating precise information on several important points, for which
the material had been collected with great labor, for want of time to
work out the results. These facts, passed over in the body of the
report, as far as they have been obtained, are brought together in this
note, in juxtaposition with other analogous facts which are found in
the text.
It seemed to be convenient, in determining the capacity of this lake
for supplying the rivers below it, to make a distinction between its
actual depth, its average depth, and its available depth.
The actual depth is, of course, variable. It is greatest near the
dam, where, in the bed of the river it is 68 feet, and on the borders of
the stream, less than 60 feet.
The average depth is used to express the result obtained by dividing
the entire volume, or contents of the reservoir, in cubic feet, as deduced
from the cross sections, by the superficial area of the lake in square
feet; and is 28.9 feet.
The average available depth is used to express the result of the
division of the available contents of the lake by its superficial area;
and is 22f feet.
The average available contents of the lake is the value of the
average available drainage, and is . . 10,122,032,640 cubic feet.
The Meadow Reservoir will contain . . 13,581,815,000 " "
The average available drainage being de¬
ducted, there will remain in the lake, at
the close of the season, when the average
drainage has been withdrawn from it. . 2,865,182,360 « «
NOTES.
115
The surface of the lake, when full, covers . . 16.9 square miles.
Its surface, when the average drainage is drawn
out, will cover . . . . . 9.5 " "
It follows that, at the close of the year, there will be 1.4 square
miles of the bottom of the lake exposed for a short period. This
exposed surface will be equal to an average breadth of 140 yards all
round the coast of the lake.
The coast of the lake, with a dam 60 feet high, would measure 90
miles in circuit.
The surface of the Meadow Reservoir will cover 411,145,000 square
feet.
NOTE H.
Since this Report was printed and submitted, I have obtained the
area and contents of the site for the reservoir which I selected as
worthy of a detailed survey on Gauley River, by Raider's Mill, a few
miles above the mouth of Cranberry River.
The superficial area of this reservoir is 100,516,000 square feet; or
2,301 acres.
Its total contents will be 5,818,800,000 cubic feet.
Its average depth will be 58 feet.
This reservoir will contain but little over one-half as much water as
the available capacity of the proposed Meadow Lake; but it possesses
two claims to consideration which the other does not. The value of
the land which will be inundated will be very small; and the drainage
into the reservoir will be so great that the surface may be drawn down
to a considerable extent several times in the course of the year, in the
certainty that it will be replenished by ample sources of supply.
Subsequently to the commencement of the surveys for this site, I dis¬
covered other sites which promise still better results; but which could
not be surveyed in time to be discussed in this report.
The details of the survey of this, the Gauley Reservoir, as well
as those of the Peters Creek Reservoir, must form the subject of a
separate communication.
116
NOTES.
DEPTH OF THE WATER AT VARIOUS POINTS IN TnE MEA¬
DOWS, SUPPOSING THE LAKE TO BE FULL, AND THE DAM
68 FEET HIGH.
Feet.
Above the proposed dam (in bed of river)
. 68
Mouth of Big Sevvell Creek ......
. 66
At Frazer's Tavern .
. 48
Mouth of Laurel Creek .......
. 60.3
Mouth of Big Clear Creek ......
. 51.5
Mouth of Little Clear Creek ......
. 46
The Meadows, near mouth of Little Clear Creek
. 40
Little Clear Creek opposite Mr. Macfarland's house
. 36.3
Mouth of Otter Creek
. 43. 7
Meadow River at crossing of Kanawha Turnpike
. 41.4
Kanawha Turnpike near Meadow River ....
. 36
Kanawha Turnpike near Otter Creek ....
. 32.4
Meadow River opposite Mr. Charles McClung's
. 39.5
Meadow River opposite Mr. Farmer's house .
. 27.2
Meadow River opposite Mr. Cabell's house
. 25
The Meadows, near river, opposite Mr. Cabell's house
. 21.5
APPENDIX.
is
I
APPENDIX.
I am instructed to prepare such a proposition as I think the James
River and Kanawha Company, charged as they have been by the State
of Virginia with the duty of improving the navigation of the Great
Kanawha, may prudently make to Congress for the simultaneous and
incidental improvement of the Ohio River below the mouth of the
Kanawha. Since the same water which will be thrown into the
Kanawha for the amelioration of its navigation, flowing out of the
Kanawha into the Ohio, will likewise improve the navigation of that
national highway, and thus benefit the country at large, it would
seem that this valuable service, when performed, ought to be paid for
out of the national treasury.
The foundation of any such proposition as, under the Resolution of
the Committee, I am requested to suggest, is the volume of water dis¬
charged by the Ohio River below its confluence with the Kanawha,
when there are given depths in its channels.
My first duty, therefore, in procuring the material necessary for such
a proposition, was to gauge the Ohio—or measure the quantity of
water which it discharges under given circumstances, at or near the
mouth of the Kanawha—with the greatest possible care.
The site which was selected by Mr. Byers at my request for these
observations, was opposite Point Pleasant, a few hundred yards above
the mouth of the Kanawha, and immediately above the ferry landing.
The channel of the river is there straight; its current very uniform
and its bottom firm, even, and symmetrical. It would be difficult and
perhaps impossible, to obtain a greater combination of favorable cir¬
cumstances for the correct determination of the flow of the river than
is found in this locality.
120
APPENDIX.
In weather generally suitable I succeeded in obtaining eight good
and reliable measurements of the discharge of the Ohio—only one of
which it is necessary to report to the Committee at this time.
For the present purpose I select that one of the eight which gave,
with due reference to the state of the water, the highest product:
For, it must be understood that, with all the care that it is possible to
bestow on these observations, the results will, for many reasons, differ
somewhat from each other. The chief cause of these irregularities is,
that there are always slight waves moving along the river—however
glassy and still its surface may be at the point of observation—which
augment or diminish the resulting discharges. These waves or invi¬
sible swells are produced by winds which prevail or have prevailed at
points sometimes remote, and temporarily retarded or accelerated the
progress of the rise or fall above or below the places where the winds
were felt. I allude here to effects precisely analogous to those which
are daily observed on tidal streams, and which could doubtless be
equally well detected, by careful observations, on the velocity of the
tidal current.
To guard against injurious errors proceeding from this cause, I
select the highest result which I obtained, as the safest basis for the
proposition which I think the Company could prudently make to
Congress.
The depth of the water on Guyandotte bar, at the time this observa¬
tion was made, was feet. The width of the river at the point
where the discharge was measured, was then 1,073 feet. The extreme
depth of the channel at that point was 8 feet. The average depth of
the section, 6/^ feet. The area of the section, 7,218 square feet.
The mean surface velocity, 2x6o2<y feet per second.
The discharge of the Ohio River at this point, and at this stage of
water, the computations for which are annexed (see Plate 4), is
15,140 cubic feet per second, or
1,308,182,000 cubic feet per diem.*
* Future observers are referred to a bench mark on an elm tree, one of a
cluster of trees just above the ferry landing, on the west side of the Kanawha.
APPENDIX.
121
We now know, from an actual survey of the proposed lake, and an
exceedingly careful measurement of the discharge of the river, the
quantity of water which the reservoir will hold, and, at the same time,
the volume which flows down the Ohio in a given period.
We know, therefore, just how long it would require for the river,
when conveying water enough to give a depth of 5^ feet on the worst
bar below Point Pleasant, to fill the proposed reservoir—if all the
water the river furnishes, instead of passing down its channel, could be
turned into that reservoir.
The cubical contents of the proposed Meadow Lake are stated at
page 28 of the Report. By dividing the figures representing the total
capacity of the lake, by the daily discharge of the river, we obtain—
13,587,815,000
1,308,182,000 10 J
In other words, these measurements show conclusively, that if all
the water which passed Point Pleasant, on the morning of November
20th, when the depth on Guyandotte Bar was 5| feet, were turned
into the proposed Meadow Lake, it would require 10-^ days for the
river in that condition to till the lake; and reciprocal]}', if the lake
were full, and the Ohio River above the mouth of the Kanawha were
absolutely dry, the discharge of the contents of the lake into its chan¬
nel at the rate of 15,140 cubic feet per second, would serve to restore
the depth of 5| feet for navigation, and to maiutain the river at that
elevation for a period of 10^ days.
At the time these measurements of the Ohio were made, the Kana¬
wha River was only a few inches above its common low water stage;
and the contribution which it afforded to the Ohio, was so little more
than the ordinary low water discharge, as to produce no sensible influ¬
ence on the conclusions which are here submitted.
I do not propose, it will be recollected, to exhaust the lake, but only
The surface of the river, when this measurement was made, stood 28.77 feet
below that bench.
122
APPENDIX.
to draw off annually the average available drainage—or, 10,722,000,000
cubic feet of its contents.
Now, to determine the effect which the annual discharge of all the
available water contained by the proposed Meadow Lake will produce
on the depth over the Gnyandotte Bar, in times of low water, we must
deduct from the value of the measured discharge when there are 5Jr
feet on the bar, the discharge of the river at the time of common low
water.
In the extreme and almost unexampled low water of September,
1808, the Ohio River was gauged by Lieutenant Sanders, at Buffing-
ton's Island, when there was a depth of 18 inches on that shoal, and
only 12 inches on Blennerhassels Island Bar; and he reported the
discharge to be, at Buffington,
232,289,280 cubic feet per diem.
By deducting this volume, representing the extreme low water dis¬
charge, from the discharge when the depth is 5j feet on Guyandotte
Bar, we find for the daily difference, which is to be supplied from the
reserved store in the lake,
1,308,182,000 — 232,289,000 = 1,075,893,000
cubic feet.
By dividing this quantity, representing the daily demand required to
raise the Ohio from extreme low water, to a depth of 5Jf feet on Guy¬
andotte bar, into the available contents of the lake, we shall obtain
10,722,000,000 =
1,075,893,000
for the period during which the proposed Meadow Lake will be capable
of annually maintaining the navigable depth on that bar, in the dryest
part of the year, at feet.
The lake which I have surveyed, and on which I have reported in
detail, will cost, according to the estimate submitted at page 70 of my
Report, §370,000. Seven such lakes will be competent to maintain the
depth, on the worst bar below the mouth of the Kanawha, at 5j feet
for a period of more than two months, and would cost, if that number
APPENDIX.
12.3
of sites, as favorably situated as the one surveyed, can be selected for
their formation—of which, I think, there can be but little doubt—
$•2,590,000.
Other measurements which I have recently made on the discharge of
the Ohio, at the mouth of the Kanawha, with the same care and accu¬
racy as that just reported, establish the further and most important
and valuable fact, that the annually available contents of the proposed
Meadow Lake will be sufficient to maintain a depth of seven feet and
four inches on Guyanclolte bar for a period of more than six days.
Ten such reservoirs, of which the cost may be set down at $3,700,000,
would therefore serve to maintain a depth of seven feet full on Guy-
andotte bar for a period of GO days.
It is impossible to over-estimate the value of these facts; and it is
exceedingly important that the public should know that they are facts.
They should, I think, be earnestly submitted to Congress, along with
the memorial of the Companjc
Resting on the foregoing facts, together with those submitted in the
text of my Report, I respectfully recommend the following as a safe
and suitable proposition to be made by the Company to Congress.
The Company may propose to form one or more reservoirs on the
tributaries of the Great Kanawha, adequate to supply, when drawn off
at an uniform rate, a sufficient volume of water to the Ohio River, to
raise its depth ou Guyandotte bar, in common low water, to 5^ f'ect
for a period of ten days, or for a longer or shorter time, at the same
rate of compensation, viz., $50,000 for each day during which the re¬
servoirs they may form shall be found sufficient annually to maintain a
depth of 51,- feet on tlic said bar, when the river is at or near its low
water stage.
And, further, without additional compensation, to maintain and keep
the said reservoirs in repair for an indefinite period of time, and to
draw off all their available contents annually, during the period when
the navigation of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers is suffering most from
want of water, and to superintend the opening and closing of the gates
124
APPENDIX.
for controlling the water, and at all times to guard the works faithfully
against injury.
Or, as an alternative proposition, the Company may, with equal
confidence, propose to let into the Ohio River, from reservoirs which
they will agree to form and maintain on the tributaries of the Great
Kanawha, ten floods annually, each of which shall be not less than
50 miles long, and rise 4 feet above the actual stage of the river, at
the time the artificial waves are produced, for the like gross sum of
$500,000: The works to be guarded and maintained by the Company ;
and the payments to be made on the completion of each of the pro¬
posed reservoirs, to the extent that the completed reservoirs shall be
certified by an official inspector, who shall be appointed for the purpose
by the President of the United States, to perform the duty which the
Company are required, and may engage by their application, to accom¬
plish.
You will perceive that I name a price greater than the probable cost
of the Meadow reservoir; intending this excess to cover possible ad¬
verse contingencies; to meet the cost of maintenance and repairs, and
supervision; the loss of interest which must be sustained by the Com¬
pany during the progress of the work; and, generally, to lessen the
risk of the Company.
It will also be observed that I do not wish the Company to be re¬
stricted to the effect which may be produced by any single reservoir.
It is quite possible that, owing to the failure to secure the lands which
will be inundated by the proposed Meadow Lake, by conditional con¬
tracts, it may not henceforth be practicable to purchase them at rea¬
sonable prices, and that the Company will be compelled to adopt other
sites, where the charges will be less. Fortunately, they are not con¬
fined to a single locality.
In the course of the past season I selected, without half exploring
the country drained by the Kanawha, twelve available sites, each of
which is worthy of a special survey, and should be surveyed before
positive contracts are made for the soil in any locality.
There are numerous and admirable reservoir sites on the upper part
of the Greenbrier, and on many of its tributaries: They are to be found
APPENDIX.
125
also oil the tributaries of New River, which flow from the west. I ex¬
plored several on the Gauley, but the time at my disposal did not per¬
mit me to extend my reconnoisance far towards the heads, either of the
Greenbrier, or New River. My examinations went far enough, how¬
ever, to enable me to state that an ample supply of water may be
commanded in reservoirs on the tributaries of the Great Kanawha
alone, where the damages will be small, to maintain a permanent navi¬
gation of more than six feet on the bars of the Ohio, below the mouth
of the Kanawha.
It requires but a beginning, to insure a wider extension of this sys¬
tem of improvement on the rivers of the West and South, than has
ever been witnessed in this country, in any department, even in the
history of railroad progress.
Washington, D. C., Nov. 27, 1858.
17
SECTION OF THE DL£Tj[ 9 IRTOllE AT POINT PLEASANT
AXn COMPUTATIONS OF THE DISCHARGE THERE WITH A DEPTH OF bh FEET ON GUYANDOTTE BAR.
November 2X>, 1858.
Volumes in.
cubic feet
S ¥
Mt'.'UL
Velocities
Voloniies
in It per see;
Kiin of
float
f>() feet
3r \ SSH3
00 "£
P- "C
^ c
* 1
<L >
II
x 2
13 |
-I i
I
■•so
§
-■3
1
c
Width of svniiuo UI7.H ft. Mean surface velocityprscc: 2.62
Average depth (>.72 ft. Total Area of Section 721fi.sq.lt. Mean velocity pi- see: ..2.10
Inclination of the rivers Biirtare io?i4 Discharge pr: rhem.l30H. 1H2.000. eft
Engraved at JM.Hutier's Establishment.84 Ciiestmit St Pliilad"?