Scientific American 177

August 31, 1912 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 177

Celilo falls. Completed section of canal in foreground. The head of the Celilo canal.

The Celilo Canal road stations and river landings awaiting shipment to the Portland market. Great By W. H. Ballou economies in transportation will be effected l'ENING O of the Columbia River to if this great tonnage of wheat can be placed navigation from its mouth to British on board steamers and floated down Columbia is a project that has been taken stream all the way to Portland. This is up energetically and may be realized with ideal transportation, effected at the least in a very few years. Steamers now tiring possible cost. At present a portage rail freight to Portland from Lewiston, on the road at Celilo transports freight, both up Snake River, one of the Columbia's chief and down the river, past the places in the tributaries, but an impassible barrier is stream impossible of navigation. This ad presented at Celilo Falls and the nearby ditional hauling of freight is exvensi\'c rapids, where reshipment of freight is and causes delay. necessary. The canal work is expected to be fill The most important work in opening ished not 1ater than 1!)16, and when thi:: the Columbia River to traffic is now going is accomplished the wheat, hay, fruit, awl forward at Celilo, where a canal, on the much of the livestock, which comprise .thc Oregon shore of the Columbia River, 8% chief staple products of the Inland Em miles long, with 5 locks, is being built. pire, will find an ideal outlet to Portialld, Two of the locks will be placed at the and thence by water or by rail to tiL' lower end of the canal, the total lift at markets of the world. this point being 70 feet. Another lock at the head of Five Mile Rapids will have a Instrumental Observation of the lift of 11 feet. A lock at Ten Mile Rapids, Sun's Heat which will be used at certain stages of By the Paris Correspondent of the water only, has a lift of 5 feet, while the Scientific American fift.h lock, at the upper end of the canal, T HE instrument which is being '�sed with a maximum lift of 9 feet, will also ROck excavation for the tandem locks. by Dr. J. Dupaigne in France for ob· be required at certain stages of the river. serving the heat of the sun presents sev The project now under way was authorized by Con but the tests show it to give. a greater tensile strength eral interesting features, one of these being a ther gress by an act approved in 1905. The cost of the worl, to concrete than any natural sand avaHable for the mometer made with a hollow conical bulb. The aim is will be almost $5,000,000. The work involves the ex work. to have the sun's rays fall upon a cell or absorbing cavation of 1,300,000 cubic yards of rock, 750,000 cubic The Columbia River Valley is one vast granary, and chamber so that the effect of the rays will be thus yards of sand, 700,000 cubic yards of earth, the con· in autumn great piles of wheat sacks are placed at rail- concentrated. An ordinary thermometer, even though struction of 200,000 cubic yards of con blackened, will always reflecf a good crete and 5,000 cubic yards of rubble part of the rays, and these will be masonry. lost. Dr. Dupaigne had the idea of THERMOMETER TUSE The RiYers and Harbors Act of June, making a combined cell and thermom 1910, appropriated $600,000 for continuing eter. Instead of using a solid bulb. he construction Oil the canal with a view to makes a double-walled one in such a wa�' completing it in 6 years. The new work that the mercury is spread around ill 11 TI/SE includes the excavation of about 5% miles thin layer just as it would apvea.r if pul and, in addition, the placing of a con between a double funnel. and tile stem of MEReu,.. SUN RAYS crete lining in sections excavated under the funnel extends as a tube so as to form former contracts, as well as the design- the thermometer. When the sun's rap; (A ing and installation of lock gates and ma Fig. I.-Diagrammatic illustration of the method of absorbing the .slin's rays, fall into this conical-shaped cavity in chinery. Maj. Jay J. Morrow, Corps of so caught by the sides of the blackened hollow cone A that they cannot be re the diagram, Fig. 1), which is blackened U. Engineers. S. A., in charge 'of the first flected and lost. The lower sketch is an enlarged view of the cone or funnel. so as to absorb them, they are not re Portland district, decided, at the time of flected again, as they are caught by the the last appropriation, that it would be sides of the narrow funnel, which has a advantageous to supervise the work di 30-degree angle. This principle is due to rectly rather than let contracts, as had M. Fery, but Dupaigne here applies it to been done previously. This plan was ap a thermometer for the first time. Thi,.; is proved by the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A., placed inside a Dewar double-walled and and First Lieut. Henry H. Roberts, silvered globe so that the bulb cavity is Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., was at once turned toward the sun's rays and the long placed in local charge of the entire "tern of the thermometer extends to' the project, involving the completion of con rear. The globe acts so as to prevent loss tracts already in effect, and the comple of b,eat. In this way the user if; able to tion of work by hired labor. The organi estimate the heat of the sun under the zation of affairs required some little time, best conditions. It is the quantity of heat but construction work was gotten under and not the' temperature which is meas wa�' in October, 1910, and it has proceed ured, and such an instrument is a special ed steadily eyer since. form of calorimeter, here shown in Fig. � In prosecuting the work, careful tests and named actinometer. ha ve been conducted by the otIicers in cha rge, to determine the qualities mak Night Letters in Italy ing far the best results, and materials NIGHT letter service similar to that have been placed in the work strictly on Awhich has become so popular in the their merits. An odd feature is the main Vnited States and Great Britain has ju::;t tenance of a sand-crusher plant, whereby been adopted by the telegraph system of stone rejected from the rock crushers, Italy (a state institution). According to which crush' rocks for concrete, are re a law recently passed this service is, for duced to sand. This is somewhat singu the present applica ble to a list of desig lar from the fact that there are sand nated places. A uniform charge has been dunes nearby where this material could adopted of 2 centesimi (about $0.004) a be secured; but it is found that by manu word, with a minimum charge of GO <;eo facturing it, its cost is not only reduced, Fig. 2.-The actlnometer In pOSitIOn to receIve tne oU'ect rays of the sun. tesimi ($0.116).