TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 611 



explain that parapet walls in concrete bridges are expected to furnish, in 

 a properly constructed . bridge, one-half the strength of the arch. It is 

 also material to this discussion for me to add that within 20 miles of the 

 citj' of Bellevue a county concrete bridge has been erected in which the 

 parapet walls were practically disconnected from the main bridge struc- 

 ture, being united only by some trivial three-fourths inch rods, whereas 

 the concrete should have been poured into the forms, which would have 

 united imperishably the parapet walls with the main structural arch. I 

 am willing to go on record as saying that whether any certain county 

 bridge made of concrete shall last and endure five years or say five hun- 

 dred years is a matter which depends upon the fact whether each hour 

 during its construction by the contractor, it was under the inspection of an 

 inspector who knew how to inspect. 



WASHOtJTS. 



Before leaving the subject of bridges we may mention another source 

 of country loss which is to a large degree unnecessary. We refer to wash- 

 outs. Not many years since in a single summer freshet in the eastern half 

 of this county, $10,000 worth of bridges were washed away and destroyed. 

 Now as to part of these bridges and perhaps as to all of them if the throat 

 of these bridges through which the water passes had been made the sub- 

 ject of computation by a competent engineer who could have figured out 

 the volume of water caused by a four-inch rain fall, falling in the space 

 of six hours, there is every reason to believe that those bridges, each and 

 severally, would have remained on their abuttments. 



Moral — If these incidents, largely drawn from the experience of our own 

 county, are similar to the experience of the other 98 counties in the state, 

 it is evident that something is terribly wrong. 



THE REMEDY. 



We are now about to single out tM'o specific measures by eith.er of which 

 we believe the great ends in view would be accomplished. We shall men- 

 tion first the recommendation of his excellency. Beryl F. Carroll, governor 

 of the state, which was presented in the inaugural address, and that rec- 

 ommendation was that each county board of supervisors throughout the 

 state should have at its elbow a trained, competent engineer to advise it 

 in all branches of its construction work, and who, in order not to multiply 

 offices and beget confusion, should retain the title of county surveyor. It 

 will not be deemed immodest in the speaker if he shall remind his co- 

 workers in the Farmers' Institute that he has for the last fourteen years 

 almost yearly advocated the identical measure proposed by Mr. Carroll, 

 which is another illustration I may explain, of what in the almost forgot- 

 ten past, Artemus Ward used to say about himself and Abraham Lincoln 

 that "great minds run in the same channel." 



The second measure which was formally brought to the attention of the 

 committee was a bill by Senator Larrabee of Fort Dodge, the commanding 

 feature of which was that it should be mandatory on the board of super- 



