RECLAMATION" OF TIDE LANDS. 



883 



By selecting a machine adapted to the conditions, excellent work can 

 be done at a very low price. 



FLOATING DREDGE. 



Where the ground is very soft a floating dipper or clam-shell dredge 

 boat, as shown in the accompanying drawings, can be used to good 

 advantage. The machinery (engine and boiler) is mounted on a barge 

 that floats in the excavation and the material dug with the dipper is 

 placed in the embankment by means of a swinging boom. A clam- 



FiG. 4.— Outline of dipper dredge suitable for ditching and for building small dikes. 



shell is better than a dipper dredge (fig. 4) for this kind of work, as it 

 is possible to use a much longer boom, thereby leaving a wide berm 

 between the pit and the toe of the embankment. Machmes of this 

 type have been successfull}^ operated with a boom 120 feet long 

 carrying a bucket holding 2 cubic yards, but the dredge best suited 



Fig. 5.— Long boom dredge with orange-peel bucket, suitable f t building large embankments. 



to the conditions along the coast is one having a boom 80 to 90 feet 

 long and a bucket holding 1 to 1^ cubic yards (fig. 5). The advan- 

 tage oi this method of construction is that the levee is built in layers 

 of wet material and is very compact and firm and permits little or 

 no seepage during times of high water. 



