ITEMS OF INTEREST March 18, 1911 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

With the world's records broken for low cost and rapidity of construction, the boring of the great five-mile Elizabeth tunnel, fourteen feet wide and eleven feet high, the most important features of the new twenty-six million-dollar municipal water project of Los Angeles, Cal., was completed Feb. 28. It pierces the crest of the Sierra Madré range, sixty-seven miles west of that city, and has been drilled through 26,780 feet of solid granite. Work began at both ends of the big bore on Oct. 5, 1907, and went on day and night. The work was finished a year ahead of time and $411,800 under the estimate. Two hundred and fifty miles to the north of Los Angeles, beyond the coast range of mountains and across the barren waste of the Mojave desert, is the Owens valley where Los Angeles is going for its water supply. According to the estimate, 59,658 lineal feet of the big task will be excavated and lined tunnels, 36,140 lineal feet excavated tunnels, and 195,842 feet excavated and lined conduit. Of the two hundred and twenty-six miles of conduit twenty-two miles will be an open unlined ditch through clay; twenty miles will be a covered ditch, lined with cement or rubble; one hundred and thirty-nine miles will be a covered conduit of cement, eighteen miles will be tunnel through rock, ten miles tunnel through earth, nine miles of steel siphons crossing canons and two miles of steel flumes crossing depressions. Eventually the conduit will be covered throughout its entire length.

Complete exoneration of the officers of the Philippine Islands government of all charges of irregularities or improprieties in connection with the administration, sales, or leases of public lands in the Philippines; yet on the other hand pointed criticisms of the inadequacy of the present laws to prevent monopolies in what are known as the "friar lands," are expressed in both the majority and minority reports of the House committee on insular affairs submitted to the House at its recent session. The majority report argues that as a practical expedient the "friar lands" should be disposed of in larger quantities to attract buyers, while the minority claim that the sale of the "friar lands" in large tracts may develop an obnoxious system of absentee landlordism. The latter also suggest that a friendly proceeding be begun in the courts by the officers of the Philippine government to determine the exact legal status of the "friar lands" with respect to public lands regulations. As to the acquisition of fifty-six thousand acres of the "friar lands" on behalf of alleged sugar trust interests, both reports declare the public officers involved were not culpable, being guided by the best available interpretations of the law.

Governor Hooper of Tennessee has a project to build a highway across the state from the extreme border in the mountains on the east to the Mississippi on the west, touching many of the leading cities and towns of the state and passing through the capital city. The road will be about six hundred miles in length. The plan is to build the highway in two days, the work being done by thousands of volunteers and the material, wagons, tools, and other things being donated. It is proposed, with a subscription raised in advance, to put in the bridges and culverts and macadam in two days next August set aside for the project. There are many miles of road over the route already built, and it will be only necessary to fill in the gaps and put the old roads in good condition.

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