12 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
TABLE 4—HYDRAULIC ELEMENTS OF CORRUGATED FLUMES. 
TIMBER FLUMES 
BENCH FLUMES ON ORCHARD MESA POWER 
CANAL. About a mile above Plateau Creek on Grande River, is 
located the head works of the Orchard Mesa Power Canal. Owing 
to the close proximity of the river to the bluffs it was necessary 
to use an aggregate length of several miles of rectangular wooden 
flumes, interspersed with earth canal, to convey the water around 
the hillside to the power house below the Orchard Mesa at Palisade 
(Plate III). This flume was built in the winter of 1909-1910. 
The flume is irregular in alignment, being made up in sec¬ 
tions varying in length from less than 100 feet to 1 over 600 feet, 
connected by sharp angles. The waterway averages twelve feet in 
width, with a depth of six feet, and is laid on a grade of about 4.5 
feet per mile. The sides and bottom are of planed lumber with 
tongue and groove joints. In nearly every section has been 
placed two-inch by four-inch posts vertically along the sides at in¬ 
tervals of about 100 feet, the purpose of -these being to check the 
flow at low heads that the sides of the flume might be kept from 
drying out and leaking badly when larger heads were turned in. 
A line of levels was run along each division of the flume, 
and benches established at points on the sides at the upper and 
lower ends of the sections to be experimented upon. The eleva¬ 
tion at each side along the bottom was also obtained. It was 
found that the flume had settled in many places as much as 0.3 
feet below grade. Dftring a time when the water was out of the 
canal accurate measurements were made of the widths at the top 
and bottom, at the upper and lower ends of each section, and al¬ 
though the flume was apparently designed for a width of 12 feet, 
this dimension did not prevail exactly throughout. 
It was necessary in choosing the proper place for the ends of 
the section to consider the effect of the angle upon the flow of the 
