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Transactions Texas Academy of Science. 
[ 64 ] 
and shapes. The abutment to the dam on the west side is in the shape 
of a T. Next to the east bank are the penstocks of the open type, built 
of cypress timber. They are of ample size, arranged to accommodate 
six turbines of sufficient capacity to utilize all the water of this stream, 
whenever a demand fof the power be made. At this writing only two 
54-inch vertical turbines of capacity of 163-horse power each, under a 
ten foot head, are installed. The entire forebay and wheel pits are 
floored with a layer of concrete twelve inches thick, and the penstocks 
are held up by twenty-nine cast iron piers and two sets of 1 beams weigh- 
ing 360 pounds per yard, all resting on concrete foundations. Upon . this 
bank, which is encircled by a brick wall, backed by piers of concrete, is. 
situated the power house, twenty-eight feet above the crest of the dam. 
The pumping machinery for irrigating purpose is driven by a shaft seven 
inches in diameter, making ninety-four revolutions per minute. The 
power house is eighty feet long by thirty-eight feet wide. One-half of 
this building, excavated to a level of fifteen feet above the forebay water 
(about sixteen feet above the crest of dam), is. used: for a pump room. 
The pump for irrigating purposes is of the duplex piston type and made 
by the Laidlow-Dunn-Gordon Company, of Cincinnati, and its capacity 
is estimated at 347# gallons per second (463 second-feet) under a normal 
speed. The suction pipe is twenty inches in diameter, and the- discharge 
eighteen inches.; The water is pumped into a reservoir of rectangular 
Shape, with a capacity of 2,000,000 cubic feet, and is about 300 feet from 
the dam. Fr.Om the reservoir, two pipes three feet in diameter lead into 
the . irrigating ditches. Various crops have been tried, such as alfalfa, 
cotton, cabbage, , etc., . but in 1000 thirty-five acres of rice were tried. 
About sixty pounds were sowed per acre from April 15th to May 1st. 
The yield was seven and one-half barrels per acre, and was readily sold 
for $3. 50 per barrel f. o. b. at Cuero. In 1901, the, Company sowed 250 
acres of Honduras rice and fifty acres in Japan. The cost of raising the 
rice at this plant will be exceedingly small as no fuel will be used. In 
addition to the power used for irrigating purposes, the power plant has 
just closed a contract to supply 225-horse powers to the cotton mill that 
was. erected in 1901. 
The flow of the Guadalupe was measured on the crest of the Buchel 
dam by electric current in March, 1901, when there had been no rains in 
the watershed for four months, and a flow of 551 second-feet was found. 
