WOOD PIPE FOR CONVEYING IRRIGATION WATER. 35 



with sand and earth, carefully tamped around the pipe. This apparently 

 stopped the decaying of the wood. The Basin Creek line has now been in 

 service 20 years, and it is impossible to estimate how much longer it will last, 

 as at present it has shown no signs of giving out. 



An 18-inch redwood pipe 8,600 feet long was built at Logan, Utah, 

 also in 1892. This is still in service, but its condition is not known, 

 though presumed to be good. 



Roswell Snow, superintendent of waterworks, Provo, Utah, under 

 date of January 30, 1913, writes as follows concerning a redwood 

 pipe: 



I have been in touch with this pipe for the past eight years, and have been 

 taking note of it in the different ground in which it is laid. I find in the clay 

 ground it seems to be nearly as good as new, in gravelly ground it is in fairly 

 good shape, but in loam and light soil it is nearly gone. It has been in use 

 nearly 25 years and I would think that the pipe in the clay ground would last 

 20 years longer. 



In the years from 1897 to 1901 and 1902, the Union Hollywood 

 Water Co. at Los Angeles, Cal., installed continuous stave redwood 

 pipe, which, according to F. C. Finkle, consulting engineer, who ex- 

 amined it in 1910, was rotted to a mere shell from one-sixteenth to 

 three-sixteenths of an inch thick. This was in a gravity system 

 under a head of not to exceed about 50 feet and in places considerably 

 less. He states that of another redwood pipe installed at Long 

 Beach, Cal., in 1900, 4,000 feet or so was replaced in January, 1912. 

 This, under his observation from 1908 to 1912, was found to be badly 

 decayed, and the bands were seriously corroded, though none failed. 

 It was laid in a compact soil which contained some alkali. The pres- 

 sure ranged from 20 to 40 pounds. 



In the fall of 1895, 7^ miles of fir pipe was built at Astoria, Oreg. 1 

 In 1905 portions of this line were found to be badly decayed, and in 

 1911 it was all replaced by another pipe of redwood. 



G. W. Lounsberry, of the Astoria Water Commission, states : 

 Where the line was buried to a depth of 2 feet or more in fine-grained sand 

 or clay it lasted much better than where it was laid in black soil mixed with 

 decayed vegetation or where it was laid in shale. This, regardless of the water 

 pressure, and the staves in the bottom where there was a constant flow of water 

 were equally affected with those on top that at times were dry on account of 

 the pipe not running full. 



The 72-inch fir pipe, 3 miles in length, built for the Pioneer Elec- 

 tric Power Co. at Ogden, Utah, in 1897 is still in service. Repairs 

 in the nature of an occasional new stave have been necessary for sev- 

 eral years, and in the month of October, 1912, when it was inspected, 

 arrangements were being made to replace the upper end where the 

 pressure is light. This pipe is in many places but little below the 

 hydraulic gradient and in most parts but lightly or partially covered. 



i Trans. Amer. Soc. Civ. Engin., 36 (1896), p. 1 ; 58 (1907), p. 65. 



