Word: damming
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...same these jobs are small ones for James Gilbert White. He is a great imperialist of U. S. contracting. Upon five continents his engineers are carrying the dynamic principles of U. S. business into lands where U. S. political influence will perhaps never penetrate. A huge dam in Abyssinia, a railroad in South America, and the construction of a great hydro-electric plant in Italy-these are a few of the big jobs now under the aegis of J. G. White, the son of a poor Pennsylvania village preacher...
...Cause. There was scarcely a man in southern California who did not have his own theory concerning the breaking of the St. Francis Dam...
...minor earthquake several days before the flood caused a shifting and a weakening of the dam's foundations. Engineers had little faith in this theory...
...Road workmen set off unusually potent charges of dynamite near the dam on the day before the break. A few Los Angeles residents even hinted that the dam was intentionally destroyed by country bumpkins to spite the city folk. Officials pronounced this speculation ridiculous...
...most plausible cause of the disaster was the dam itself. "It is admitted," said Coroner Frank A. Nance of Los Angeles, "that the dam was not anchored to hard rock. One end was fastened to shale and the other to a conglomerate formation." Water had gradually seeped into this bed, softened it; and last week when the dam was filled to its maximum capacity, the foundations crumbled. Residents reported that they had noticed small leaks about the base of the dam ten days before the break...