“As the rock heap rose gradually, it checked the river, causing it also to rise higher and higher and to cascade over the pile of stone. Riffles were caused, and an undercutting of the lower slope of the rock heap allowed it to settle and the stones to roll down stream. All of this undercutting and settling had to be made up and overcome by the rapid dumping of other large stones.”
“It was necessary to raise the river bodily about eleven feet. As the water rose and became ponded on the upper side of the rock heap, train load after train load of small stone and gravel from the nearby hills was dumped to fill the spaces between the large rocks. Finally, after days and nights of struggle, the water was raised to a point where it began to flow down its former channel and less and less to pass over the rock heap. Then finer material was added and rapidly piled up on the accumulated rock mass. At first, a large amount of water passed through, and steps were taken as rapidly as possible to close the openings by dumping sand and gravel, finishing this work by hydraulicking silt or mud over the area and washing this in with a hose. By thus piling up finer and finer material and distributing it, the seepage or percolation through the mass was quickly checked and the barrier became effective.” (“The Salton Sea,” by F. H. Newell, Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service; Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1907, p. 331.)
The crevasse was closed and the river forced into its old bed on the 10th of February 1907, fifty two days after President Roosevelt appealed to Mr. Harriman, and fifteen days after the first “battleship” load of rock was dumped from the first completed trestle. In order, however, that this gigantic work might be accomplished, the transportation of commercial freight on the western part of the transcontinental railroad had to be temporarily abandoned. In testifying before a House committee, about a year later, Chief Engineer Cory said:
“For three weeks, two divisions of the Southern Pacific system, embracing about twelve hundred miles of main line, were practically tied up because of our demands for equipment and facilities. We had a thousand flat cars exclusively in our service, and shipping from Los Angeles’ seaport—San Pedro—was practically abandoned for two weeks until we returned a considerable portion of the equipment. It was simply a case of putting rock into that break faster than the river could take it away.... In fifteen days after we got the trestle across and dumped the first carload of rock we had the river stopped. In that time I suppose we handled rock faster than it was ever handled before.... We hauled it from Patagonia, Arizona, four hundred and eighty five miles, over two mountain passes; from Tacna, sixty miles to the east; from three other quarries—one on the Santa Fé, one on the Salt Lake road, and one on the Southern Pacific—all near Colton, two hundred miles to the west, and over the San Gorgonio Pass.... We brought in about three thousand flat cars loaded with rock from these immense distances, and we put in, all together, about 80,000 cubic yards of rock in fifteen days.”
But the work of the Southern Pacific engineers was not confined solely to the closing of the crevasse. In order to prevent a future break in some other part of the irrigation company’s defensive system, they were compelled to extend their branch railway, and to build or reinforce levees all up and down the river. Describing this work soon after its completion in 1907, the Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service said:
“There now extends from the head works in the United States along the river, between it and the canal, a double row of dikes, the outer one being occupied by a railroad. These extend in an unbroken line for a dozen miles near the river and shut it off from the lowlands to the west. The river side of this dike is protected by a thick layer of gravel, and the railroad affords immediate access to all parts, so that if menaced by the cutting of the banks it will be possible to bring men and materials to check the floods from encroachment upon the dike itself. Secondary dikes or cross levees run from the main structure to certain subsidiary works, so that if the outer main dike is broken or water flows through, this will be ponded, for a while at least, against the inner line of defense, thus affording time to assemble the necessary equipment to fight another intrusion.”
Hind-Clarke Dam by which Crevasse was Finally Closed in January 1907
Railroad Track on Reconstructed Levee