BARROWS

BARROWS 09.11. 1873 Melrose MA/USA 15.03. 1954 Winchester MA/USA Harold Kilbrith Barrows graduated as civil engineer in 1895 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT. After his work with the Metropolitan Water Board of Boston MA, he was on the Faculty of the University of Vermont for three years. From 1904 to 1908, Barrows was a District Engineer of the US Geological Survey in New England and New York. He then joined the MIT Hydraulic Engineering Department, from where he retired in 1941. Barrows was both a hydraulics professor for more than 30 years and a consultant, with his office in Boston since 1907. He had an extensive practice in hydraulic engineering, water power, water supply and flood control, and was since 1934 also a regional consultant for the Natural Resources Planning Office. From 1928 to 1930 he acted as a Member of the Advisory Committee of Engineers on flood control for the State of Vermont, and later for the State of New Hampshire. Barrows has written a number of books of which his Water power engineering is certainly most known. This book includes the chapters: (1) Water power development, (2) Hydrology, (3) Stream-flow data, (4) Turbines, (5) Dams, (6) Canals and penstocks, (7-8) Powerhouse, (9) Plant accessories, (10) Speed and pressure regulation, (11) Transmission lines, (12) Cost and value of water power, and (13) Reports and plants descriptions. He also added a chapter to the well-known book of Sherman and Horton on water resources. Additional works include a discussion to one of the first shaft spillways, a hydraulic element that was essentially developed in the United States and has become a standard in hydraulic engineering since the 1960s. Anonymous (1940). Barrows to retire from MIT. Engineering News-Record 124(20): 681. P Anonymous (1954). Harold K. Barrows. Engineering New-Record 152(Mar.25): 60. Barrows, H.K. (1907). Surface water supply of the United States 4: St. Lawrence River Basin. Government Printing Office: Washington DC. Barrows, H.K. (1915). Discussion of The hydro-electric power plant at the Wachusett Dam, Clinton MA. Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 2(3): 111-113. Barrows, H.K. (1915). Improvement to water supply of the city of Fall River, MA. Journal New England Water Works Association 30(9): 46-62. Barrows, H.K. (1925). Discussion to The hydraulic design of the shaft spillway for the Davis Bridge Dam. Trans. ASCE 88: 66-73. Barrows, H.K. (1927). Water power engineering. McGraw-Hill: New York. Sherman, L.K., Horton, R.E. (1933). Rainfall, runoff and evaporation. IAHS Bulletin 20: 22-96.

BATES 10.06. 1777 Morristown NJ/USA 28.11. 1839 Rochester NY/USA David Stanhope Bates took up the study of survey and mathematics while being a clerk. He was then employed by the owner of large tracts in Oneida County NY to survey his land in 1810. From 1817 he was assistant engineer for the middle division of the Erie Canal, and between 1819 and 1824 there division engineer in charge of works in Irondequoit Valley, thereby designing and constructing the first aqueduct over Genesee River at Rochester NY, which consisted of eleven masonry arches totalling 240 m length. He was also in charge of lock construction at Lockport NY. The almost 600 km long Erie Canal between Lake Erie and Hudson River NY was opened in 1825; it represented a colossal enterprise and the most prestigious project of the young USA, praised then as a civil engineering marvel. This canal allowed for westward migration and within 1840 it turned New York City to the largest sea port of the country. The builders of the Great Western Canal struck out westward from Rome NY in 1817, directed by chief engineer Benjamin Wright (1770-1842). Existing streams and lakes were joined by the canal route. The 130 km middle division was cut in light soil across level terrain, where locks and aqueducts were not required, built by Wright’s assistant Bates. Bates was from 1824 to 1829 the principal engineer of the Ohio Canal system thereby surveying some 1,300 km of canal length and feeders. He acted in parallel as chief engineer of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company, supervising and constructing the canal around the Louisville Falls. From 1828 to 1834 Bates was chief engineer of the Niagara River Hydraulic Company, as also of the Chenango Canal from Utica NY to Binghampton NY. He was commissioned to survey the route of the Genesee Valley Canal and surveyed the line of the Auburn and Rochester Railroad in 1830. He was in 1834 appointed state engineer of Michigan to make surveys for the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, yet he resigned in 1835 because of his poor health. FitzSimons, N., ed. (1972). Bates, David S. A biographical dictionary of American civil engineers: 7-8. ASCE: New York. Herringshaw, T.W. (1858). Bates, D.S. National Library of American biography: Washington DC. Koeppel, G. (2009). Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire. Philadelphia. (P) Langmead, D., Garnaut, C. (2001). Erie Canal. Encyclopaedia of Architectural and engineering feats: 112-113. ABC-Clio Inc.: Santa Barbara CA. Vought, J.G., Bates, D.S. (1825). John G. Vought Letter. Washington DC.