Document Details

The Treatment of Sediment-Carrying Mountain Streams in Europe, and its Application to California

G.J. Specht | September 12th, 1885


The debris question, so important to the interests of this State, is full of interesting features. It is of such intricate and complicate nature that only the most careful and impartial investigations of all the conditions bearing upon it can bring about its successful solution. The desire to contribute a small share to such has moved the writer to investigate what has been done in reference to sediment-carrying rivers, torrential streams, etc., in other parts of the world. The Alps in the southern and central part of Europe afford the best opportunity to study this question, as they have a great many such watercourses, which have damaged and partially continue to destroy the valleys by raising  the river bed and destroying adjoining agricultural ands by erosion or filling in. Certain portions of these, however, have been very successfully improved by comparatively simple and inexpensive means. The source of the detritus there is natural wash, and inno case hydraulic mining. In California the conditions are somewhat different, since the natural as well as the artificial source of the detritus must be considered.

Keywords

sediment, streams