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Show Record All of the boats that I have been testifying about were run for commercial purposes, that is for profit. 1217 Elliott J. Dent testified for complainant on direct exami-nation as follows: I am 52. I am a graduate of the United States Military Academy, class of 1901. I have had engineering experience on a 1218 large number of rivers in the United States. I made an examination of the Colorado River from September 25, 1929, to about October 4, 1929. I describe a crossing bar as follows: I am speaking now exclusively of rivers carrying a heavy load of sand in their beds. A river is ordinarily a succession of bends, with more or less straight reaches at the point where the curvature changes. During a freshet a river ordinarily builds a bar of sand at the point 1220 where this curvature changes. This bar may, at the end of the freshet, be considerably above the low water surface of the water. As the freshet plays out and the river begins to thaw, a time comes when the river ceases to build the bar higher, and on the contrary, begins to excavate a trench through that bar, which will eventually become the low water channel. The amount of excavation may be very considerable. I saw bars along the Colorado River where it is quite certain that the excavation reached 4 or 5 feet. In the case of the Arkansas River it has reached 12 or 15 feet. In the Mississippi River, for a few miles below St. Louis, they consider that a bar which during the freshet stage does no build higher than the low water surface will cause no worry during the subsequent low water season. In other words, a river will excavate at least nine feet through that bar. Where a river is curving to the left, the deep water will be in the concave bend, close to the bank. As you leave a bend turning to the left, you are following the right bank, and as you enter the straight reach, the deep channel ordinarily follows down the right bank for a considerable distance. As you enter the bend, curving in the opposite direction, or to the right, you - 163- |