HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



SPLASH DAM AFTER HEAD OF WATER WAS EXHAUSTED 



streams were obliterated hy the dense folds of the fog. The 

 wind shifted the masses of vapor now and then, revealing the 

 familiar heights. The rising sun finally diffused the fog, but the 

 perspectives were still weird and indistinct. Shadowy forms a,y- 

 peared suddenly and disappeared unexpectedly. The chug and 

 grind of the locomotives were indistinct. The harsh voices of 

 engine-drivers were softened and made musical, and floated un- 

 certainly on the eddying air. 



In the great penned-iu mass of water above the dam logs 

 •crouched one against the other. There was a slight forward 

 movement of the timber mass. As the sun climbed towards the 

 meridian the light increased. The fog rose slowly, and the moun- 

 tain tops i>rotruded. A soft breeze billowed the fog before it 

 in great clouds. One valley was seen clearly and then another. 

 By noon the landscape had become familiar, save as it was ob- 

 scured by the fragments of mist which hong here and there in 

 ■deep coves, or floated about the top of a timber clad summit. 



A regiment of woodsmen and natives had encamped along the 



UALLIAL. iKVlN Ul LiH..s io ilU in li 



battlements of the gorge to see the great spectacle. But few 

 mountaineers believed that it was possible to "drive" the 

 Breaks. They had tried; their fathers and their fathers' fathers 

 had tried; all former eft'orts had been failures. 



Along the dam active preparations were seen. Electric wires 

 were being strung and tested. Sticks of dynamite were taken 

 out across the piers and inserted in the great triggers. At noon 

 every detail was complete, and expectation was at its highest 

 pitch. 



"All's ready" came the cry. The man in charge of the elec- 

 tric battery crouched in his shelter. A few, heedless of the risk, 

 retained their exposed positions. 



' ' All 's ready ' ' again came the cry, followed almost immediately 

 by "Let 'er go!" 



Down shot the plunger of the battery. Five great blocks of 

 wood were lifted from the tops of the piers, their rise being 

 followed by a volleying crash as the report echoed and re-echoed 

 through the narrow canyon. 



The shattered triggers rose as great black balls, and passed 

 away into nothingness as had the fog. Five fifty-feet poplar logs 

 leaped and rebounded from their impact with the rigid steel 

 posts set in the concrete piers. The spar logs jumped from their 

 places against the toe-sills, their lower ends swept forward, and fol- 

 lowing came a mad tide of timber, foam and water that rushed 

 through the five great sluices with a deafening roar. The weight 

 of the flood shook the hills, and there were great masses of spray 

 that filled the gorge to th^ hill tops. One could scarcely see what 

 was actually happening. One thing was sure, a moment before 

 one could pass dry-shod across the gorge below the dam, and now 

 it was a raging torrent of water and huge logs. 



The surface of the water above the dam hollowed out, while 

 the pent-up flood below bulged in the center several feet above 

 the outer water level. Great sticks of poplar became jammed 



-\IAK1.\G THE I'OPLAR LOGS INTO RAFTS DOWN THE RIVER 



one with the other, and jumped clear of the water, and then fell 

 back into the hurrying flood. 



"I guess it's all right," said the big boss. "We'll know 

 pretty soon, but I believe that five hundred acres of water witn 

 a twenty -five foot 'blue-head' turned loose through the Breaks 

 will take some logs with it. ' ' 



Forty-five minutes after the dam was exploded, the telephone 

 bell at Bart 's Lick camp, just above the dam, rang vigorously. 

 The voice at the other end of the line said: "The blue-head is 

 here. The head of the drive has passed the mouth of Grassy, 

 and the logs are in rafting water." 



The length of the Breaks of the Big Sandy is an even ten 

 miles, and the great drive had thus made the run at the rate of 



STEAM LOG LOADER 



