Shady Work at Geneva

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 777, 25 September 1929, Page 9

Shady Work at Geneva

1 SECRET BRITISH DOCUMENT Used as U.S. Big-Navy Lever REVELATIONS MADE AT WASHINGTON • (United r.A.—By Telegraph — Copprigh‘ 1 (Australia* ana &.Z. Press Association-, (U at fed Service) Received 9.13 a.m. WASHINGTON. Tuesday. A LETTER by William Schearer, who was an observer for the American shipbuilders at the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference, claiming that a secret British document which he t obtained influenced the legislative course of the 15-cruiser j construction Bill in the Senate last session, was read today j into the record of the Senate committee which is investigating Schearer’s claim and allegations against the shipbuilders.

The letter was addressed to Mr. Homer L. Ferguson, president of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, last March, shortly after the Cruiser Bill had been passed. Schearer wrote stating that he realised that serious opposition confronted the programme, that the funds might noj be appropriated, that the clause requiring the start of construction by a given time might be eliminated, and that the number of cruisers might be reduced. He said this opposition came from the highest authority in the land, including the Secretary of State, all of the internationalists, and the so-called pacifist bodies. “As you are aware, I was the possessor of a secret British document, so vital and amazing in its construction, that I took it to the Navy Department, where under the highest authorities the document was photographed. “On that same evening, a photostat

copy was handed to me. I immediately placed it in the hands of a United States senator, and the Press of this nation reflected the power of his voice when it referred to his speech for cruisers as the greatest speech ever made in the United States for national defence, nor did that senator hesitate to brand the opposition as traitors/’ MEASURING THE NILE ASSOUAN DAM SLUICES CALIBRATED WORK OF 20 YEARS Ministry of Public Works in Egypt has recently published a final report on the calibration of the sluices of the Assouan dam. The work has extended over a period of 20 years, with the result that it is now possible to obtain an automatic and reliable record of the discharge of the Nile at all stages of the river. Some measurements of the flow at low stages were made prior to the construction of the ! dam, to secure data for fixing the j capacity of the waterway needed | through the sluices. Many of the estimates then made were based on float measurements, and the results were ■ sufficiently accurate for the end immediately in view. On the completion of the dam, however, there was a demand for greater precision, and a comparison between estimates based on the use of floats and on current meter readings demonstrated the great superiority of the latter. Some very anomalous results were, however, recorded in certain cases, and the matter was accordingly carefully studied, both theoretically and experimentally. It was thus shown that when the flow was markedly turbulent the meters tended to read high and errors of as much as 20 per cent, were recorded in extreme cases. Further experiment proved, however, that by suitably siting the meters very reliable figures could be obtained at low Nile, although in flood conditions the readings still rim about 5 per cent, high, as is proved by comparison with the discharge from the calibrated sluices. A Difficulty One difficulty, however, was early found to be associated with the determination of discharge from meter readings, that each site required recalibrating every year, owing to the changes made in the channels and sand banks by the annual floods. This led Sir M. Macdonald to decide upon calibrating the sluices in the dam. and this work has now been brought .to completion mainly by Messrs. H. E. Hurst and D. A. F. Watt. The task was facilitated by the fact that in 1905 a water-cushion was constructed under some of the high-level sluices in order to protect the river bed from erosion. This cushion formed a tank with a total capacity of 22,000 cubic metres. The volume up to different levels was carefully measured, and the sluices discharging into it were calibrated in turn by noting the rise of level in the tank due to, say, a threeminute discharge at various heads and sluice openings. The swirl produced in the tank was such that level readings could only be taken some two hours after shutting off the water, but leakage and evaporation losses were measured and allowed for. In this way co-efficients of discharge under all conditions were determined for those sluices which discharged directly into the water cushion. The other,sluices, which did not discharge into this tank, were calibrated indirectly by comparing levels down stream when tbe flow was diverted from the directly-cali-brated sluices, to an equivalent number of the other sluices. Some 730 current meter readings were also made in the sluices. In this way the whole of the sluices have been calibrated. In all, some I 250 observations were made on the ! sluices discharging into the tank. These were supplemented by 1,130 determinations by other methods of measuring the river flow, and by about 2,500 model experiments.—“ Engineering."