truth was not known until the following day when all were accounted for except one man who was found exhausted in the town of Sandwich and cared for later. Saturday morning July 14th the sun looked down on a blackened area of 3500 acres. That beautiful wooded area that environed one of the most attractive lakelets in the Waterville mountains was denuded of its products of forest cover that had been several generations in the making. While the fury of the fire had spent itself, much of it still lurked on the mountain tops to the north and was not finally squelched until the welcome rain of Sunday, July 15th. This forest fire, one of the most destructive fires of which we have a record, caused an enormous loss not only to the owners of the timber lands but a loss beyond computation to coming generations, for no valuable growth will follow on this burned area while any of us, regardless of how young some of us may be, are living. Reforestation such as future wants will demand was set back one hundred years. Not only has the commercial value of this area been wiped out but the beauty of the wooded growth is gone. From the beautiful wooded slope of the majestic Sandwich Dome to the peak of White face Mountain will extend a scar that our great-grandchildren can look upon when they are old people. Notwithstanding this great commercial loss of the present, this loss to the future, this loss to the scenic beauty, and the damage caused to the watershed, let us hope that much good will yet come from it after all. Let this fire be a warning to people who are too optimistic about our forests; let it be a warning to people who are careless with fire; let it be a warning to cigarette smokers and all other smokers who are not decent and sane about it. As a rule we are not disposed to measure the full value of our forests. We do not show proper respect for the woods from which come our homes. Our intent greed for wealth regardless of what the future may need drives us to destroy rather than conserve. From our forests come the homes of the nation, the fuel to warm its people, the furniture that is necessary to equip a home. We cannot open our eyes in the morning without having revealed to our vision some product of the forest. Wherever we are, on land or sea, some part of the forest is there to aid and protect us. When our country was young there were forests everywhere and it is small wonder that people of that time did not foresee the need of conservation but, as the cities and towns grew larger and lands were cleared for farms, the forests grew smaller. In other words the rapid growth of population demanded homes faster than the forests could furnish the material, hence the great need of strenuous conservation of growing timber. Timber is a crop and should be harvested in such a way as to encourage another crop to follow. The greatest enemy to conservation of forests is fire. Why should we not use due care to keep this greatest enemy away from the chief asset of our present civilization? Ours is a literary nation and literature depends on the forests. Our forests make possible all our books and libraries, all our daily and weekly papers and, in fact, the news and doings of the world are broadcasted by printers' ink on the product of the forests. We might go on enumerating the uses to which the products of our forests are put but it is not necessary. The one great thing that should be made a paramount issue from now on is, to use fire as a servant not as a master. Let us hew close to the line of conserving for ourselves and our descendants this most important natural asset. Let this unsightly scar high up on the southern slopes of the Waterville mountains warn us to be cautious. T At the very beginning of the work. This picture was taken on March 13. THE BRISTOL DAM An Important Water Power Development By H. M. NABSTEDT HERE is being constructed near Bristol, N. H., by the Ambursen Construction Company of New York City, and for the Utilities Power Company the initial installation of a rather extended power development which should be of great interest to the people of New Hampshire who are interested in conservation and in the development of the natural resources of the state. The dam now being constructed is the lower 52 feet of what is finally to be an 82 foot dam. The type of construction is known as the Ambursen Reinforced Concrete Dam. The spillway will be 300 feet long and is designed to take care of a fourteen-foot overflow of water, this being considerably more than the largest known flood. Provision has been made in the construction for the extension of the buttresses or piers downstream and upward when it is decided to increase the height of the dam. The entire structure will be about 550 feet in length. Besides the spillway of 300 feet there will be about 100 feet devoted to the intake and powerhouse, the remainder being used for abutments, log sluice, etc. In order to store water to the maximum to take care of the dry spells the dam will be provided with flash-boards five feet in height, thus very decidedly increasing the available storage. The dam itself being of the hollow reinforced concrete type, of which about 150 have been constructed throughout the United States, Cuba, Porto Rico and Canada, is particularly adapted to this particular site. The piers or buttresses are triangular in shape and provide for a very large base thereby increasing the stability of the dam and making it impossible for the structure to slide out or turn over. The upstream face of the dam is at an angle of, 45 degrees so that each additional foot of water held back by the dam also means an added tendency of holding the dam in place. The piers support a reinforced concrete deck or water barrier and this concrete slab View taken April 25 from the river bank toward the west. This shows the westerly end of the dam, concrete mixer, storage bins, and unloading platform. is carried over the top and down over the downstream end of the buttresses for the purpose of carrying off the overflow of water. The structure is an improvement over the mass type of dam which has been in use for centuries in that the upstream face, which is commonly practically perpendicular in the mass dam and consequently is subjected to the maximum destructive tendencies, is replaced with a sloping face which permits of the added load of water having a tendency toward stability. The construction forces first appeared at the site about January 1st. Since then the forces have been increased until now about 150 men are engaged on the work. The past winter was a very unfavorable one and while an attempt was made at excavation the efforts were largely directed toward the construction of a camp to house the construction forces, the construction of cottages for the administrative forces and the installation of construction construction plant and equipment. The first concrete was placed in the latter part of April and since that time concrete has been flowing rapidly so that at the date of writing the dam looms up as a rather formidable structure. The spring floods and ice conditions. were rather severe during the winter and spring and no attempt was made toward coffer damming. Immediately after the freshets work was commenced and the north portion of the river was dammed off. At the date of this article that foundation work through the greater portion of the river bed has been completed and with favorable weather it is merely a matter of a few days when the water will be turned through the present work and the remainder of the river bed will be coffer-dammed and construction will proceed toward the south embankment, at which place considerable work has already been done in the intake and power house section. The favorable weather conditions of the past two months have aided greatly in advancing this construction. View taken from the unloading platform showing buttresses on June 13. The present power installation is to consist of three units of 3351 horsepower each. This will later be changed to three units of 5808 horsepower each when the height of the dam is increased. Already the four transformers are at the site of the work. The water wheels, electrical generators, governors, penstocks, etc., are on the way to Bristol. This massive machinery is being taken to the work by means of a specially constructed vehicle. At the work an inclined railway is being constructed to take the machinery down the high embankment and a trestle for taking the machinery across the river is being constructed. There will be constructed in connection with this work several interesting appurtenances such as sluiceways to lower the water whenever necessary, a log sluice to take logs through the dam, flashboards for temporarily storing an additional amount of water and intake provisions for conveying water to the power house equipment and the controlling of this flow. While New Hampshire has taken advantage of its waterpower since its earliest days in a small way, a study of the trend of waterpower development will indicate that its value has always been appreciated but a comprehensive manner of taking advantage of this invaluable resource has never been carefully carried out. Many states have made this feature of development an issue, and the development of water power is under its control to a limited extent. While this control has its disadvantages nevertheless there are advantages which ultimately will mean much more than a haphazard development at this time. An increasing number of states are appointing Commissions to give the development of water storage. and power careful attention. Plans must be submitted to these Commissions before work can be commenced. New Hampshire just recently has done this and the structure at Bristol is under constant state supervision. The town of Bristol has a splendid illustration of wasteful development of On July 4, the work had progressed to this point. The picture was taken from the coffer dam. day. The situation develops itself to the point where every person interested in any one development is benefitted by following all developments, those at the lower portions of the stream can well afford to co-operate with those above and still more decidedly the state can well lend its co-operation toward this development of the water powers as a live help in the conservation of other natural resources. water resources. There is a consider- is stored during the remainder of the able fall between Newfound Lake and Pemigewassett River but since there are numerous owners of power rights on this small stream only a portion of the power available is being utilized The waste is variously estimated at 60% to 90%. Ultimately such conditions cannot exist. Yet the Bristol illustration is only one of many existing in the state. Further the state formerly had numerous small developments which have gone out of use. The modern trend is to assemble many of these small developments into larger ones thereby reviving the power developments to a more efficient degree and by the use of transmission lines provide for an outlet where the power is required. Each new development on any stream and its tributaries is an advantage in that each serves as a regulator of the flow of water. Excess water is stored in large bodies and when the rainfall is least this storage is drawn upon and if the power developments are in use only a portion of the day water The Ambursen Construction Company has made a specialty of the design and construction of water storage and power dams for many years. Among those on which the writer has worked are the one for Oklahoma City which recently withstood a very severe test in taking care of extreme floods, another at Tulsa, Oklahoma which is 80 feet in height and 1000 feet in length, another at Ardmore, Oklahoma. The power development at Bristol is the largest now under construction in New Hampshire and when it is finally raised will be the largest in the state. |