Word Finder - dams

definition

A structure placed across a flowing body of water to stop the flow or part of the flow, generally for purposes such as retaining or diverting some of the water or retarding the release of accumulated water to avoid abrupt flooding.

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A dam is often an essential source of water to farmers of hilly country.

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The water reservoir resulting from placing such structure.

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Boats may only be used at places set aside for boating on the dam.

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A device to prevent a tooth from getting wet during dental work, consisting of a rubber sheet held with a band.

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A reservoir.

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A firebrick wall, or a stone, which forms the front of the hearth of a blast furnace.

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To block the flow of water.

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Female parent, mother, generally regarding breeding of animals (correlative to sire).

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A kind of crowned piece in the game of draughts.

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An obsolete Indian copper coin, equal to a fortieth of a rupee.

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A former coin of Nepal, 128 of which were worth one mohar.

Were it not for these dams steamers might reach Mosul itself, at an elevation of 353 ft.

Two great dams on the river (one built by the Federal government) provide good water power.

Throughout Great Britain there are still many reservoirs, with earthen dams, which cannot safely be filled; and others which, after remaining for years in this condition, have been repaired.

The wheels, called naoura, are of the most primitive construction, made of rough branches of trees, with palm leaf paddles, rude clay vessels being slung on the outer edge to catch the water, of which they raise a prodigious amount, only a comparatively small part of which, however, is poured into the aqueducts on top of the dams. These latter are exceedingly picturesque, often consisting of a series of well-built Gothic arches, and give a peculiar character to the scenery; but they are also great impediments to navigation.

It is lowest in November, and rocks, shallows, and the remains of old dams then render it almost unnavigable.

Midhat caused many of the dams to be destroyed and for some years occasional steamers were run between Meskene and Hillah in flood time, from April to August.

The improvement of the river, by the removal of snags and the construction of dams and locks in order to give it a navigable depth of to ft.

A new feature in diking was the construction of dams or sluices across the mouths of rivers, sometimes with important consequences for the villages situated on the spot.

Owing to the shrinkage of the soil in reclaimed lands, however, that is, lands which have been drained after fen or other reclamation, the sides of the polder are often higher than the middle, and it is necessary by means of small dams or sluices to make separate water-tight compartments (afpolderingen), each having its own unit of measurement.

In the Mediterranean provinces of Spain there are some very remarkable irrigation dams. The great masonry dam of Alicante on the river Monegre, which dates from 1579, is situated in a narrow gorge, so that while 140 ft.

In the jungles of Ceylon are to be found remains of gigantic irrigation dams, and on the neighbouring mainland of Southern India, throughout the provinces of Madras and Mysore, the country is covered with irrigation reservoirs, or, as they are locally termed, tanks.

The casual traveller in southern India constantly remarks the ruins of old dams, and the impression is conveyed that at one time, before British rule prevailed, the irrigation of the country was much more perfect than it is now.

When a river partakes of the nature of a torrent, dwindling to a paltry stream at one season and swelling into an enormous flood at another, it is impossible to construct a system of irrigation canals without very costly engineering works, sluices, dams, waste-weirs, &c., so as to give the engineer entire control of the water.

Some of the corporations constructing works for the sale of water built structures of notable size, such, for example, as the Sweet-water and Hemet dams of southern California, the Bear river canal of Utah, and the Arizona canal, taking water from Salt river, Arizona.

The indiscriminate slaughter of fry, and the obstacles opposed by irrigation dams to breeding fish, are said to be causing a sensible diminution in the supply in certain rivers.

In its course through Mysore the channel is interrupted by twelve anicuts or dams for the purpose of irrigation.

Masonry dams are, for the most part, merely retaining walls of exceptional size, in which the overturning pressure is water.

A factory-owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought that it could not be true, for, judging from his acquaintance with dams, sand would not lie at so steep an angle.

The dams or ponds in which the operation is conducted are of variable size, and usually between 4 and 5 ft.

These researches led to a wide discussion of the sufficiency of the law of uniformly varying stress when applied to horizontal joints as a test of the stability of dams. Professor Karl Pearson showed that the results are dependent upon the assumption that the distribution of the vertical stresses on the base of the structure also followed the law of uniformly varying stress.

The late Sir Benjamin Baker, F.R.S., suggested that the stresses might be measured by experiments with elastic models, and among others, experiments were carried out by Messrs Wilson and Gore a with indiarubber models of plane sections of dams (including the foundations) who applied forces to represent the gravity and water pressures in such a manner that the virtual density of the rubber was increased many times without interfering with the proper ratio between gravity and water pressure, and by this means the strains produced were of sufficient magnitude to be easily measured.

As a matter of fact, the foundations of most dams are carried down in vertical trenches, the lower part only being in sound materials so that actual separation almost corresponding with the hypothetical On Some Disregarded Points in the Stability of Masonry Dams, Drapers' Company Research Memoir (London, 1904).

The rippled stalks are tied in small bundles and packed, roots downwards, in the dams till they are quite full; over the top of the upper layer is placed a stratum of rushes and straw, or sods with the grassy side downwards, and above all stones of sufficient weight to keep the flax submerged.

In dams of moderate height above ground and considerable depth below ground there is, moreover, no reason why advantage should not be taken of the earth resistance due either to the downstream face of the trench against which the foundations are built, or to the materials excavated and properly embanked against that face above the ground level or to both.

Both the Neuadd and the Fisher Tarn dams are largely dependent upon the support of earthen embankments with much economy and with perfectly satisfactory results.

The only objection that can in any case be urged against most of the natural products is that a longer time is required for induration; but in the case of masonry dams sufficient time necessarily passes before any load, beyond that of the very gradually increasing masonry, is brought upon the structure.

The actual construction of successful masonry dams has varied from the roughest rubble masonry to ashlar work.

Any given yard of height measured during construction, or at any time after construction, will be less than a yard when additional weight has been placed upon it; hence the ends of such dams placed against rock surfaces must move with respect to those surfaces when the superincumbent load comes upon them.

So far as the writer has been able to observe or ascertain, there are very few masonry dams in Europe or America which have not been cracked transversely in their higher parts.

Its construction drew much attention to the subject of masonry dams in England - where the earthwork dam, with a wall of puddled clay, had hitherto been almost universal - and since its completion nine more masonry dams of smaller size have been completed.

In connexion with the Elan and Claerwen works, in Mid-Wales, for the supply of Birmingham, six masonry dams were projected, three of which are completed, including the Caban Goch dam, 590 ft.

In the Derwent Valley scheme, in connexion with the water supplies of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, six more masonry dams have received parliamentary sanction.

Two of these dams are now in course of construction, one of which, the Howden, will be 1080 ft.

The recent investigations already referred to indicate the desirability of curving dams in plan in order to reduce the possibility of tension and infiltration of water at the upstream face.

In New South Wales thirteen thin concrete dams, dependent upon horizontal curvature for their resistance to water pressure, have been constructed in narrow gorges at comparatively small cost to impound water for the use of villages.

Something has been said of the failures of earthen dams. Many masonry dams have also failed, but, speaking generally, we know less of the causes which have led to such failures.

The absence of one or bath, of these conditions has led to the failure of many dams.

The Federal government undertook to deepen the channel by dredging and by making two dams and two locks between the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway bridge in St Paul and the Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis - a distance of 11 .

Of course there is a large interfusion of the blood of each of the trio through the dams of horses of the present day; indeed, it is impossible to find an English race-horse which does not combine the blood of all three.

These exceptions are the Byerly Turk, who was " Captain Byerly's charger in Ireland in King William's wars (1689, &c.)," and a horse called Counsellor, bred by Mr Egerton in 1694, by Lord D'Arcy's Counsellor by Lord Lonsdale's Counsellor by the Shaftesbury Turk out of sister to Spanker - all the dams in Counsellor's pedigree tracing back to Eastern mares.

In Herod's pedigree there are fully a dozen dams whose pedigree is unknown.

In regard to mares it has very frequently turned out that animals which were brilliant public performers have been far less successful as dams than others which were comparatively valueless as runners.

This record of height, with other particulars as to breeding, &c., serves to direct breeders in their choice of sires and dams. The standard of height established by the Hackney Horse Society was accepted and officially recognized by the Royal Agricultural Society in 1889, when the prize-list for the Windsor show contained pony classes for animals not exceeding 14 hands.

This depression is occupied in great part by a series of lakes, some of these filling transversal breaches in the range, whilst others are remains of glacial reservoirs, bordered by morainic dams, extending as far as the eastern tableland and corresponding in these cases with transversal depressions which reach the Atlantic Ocean.

Dams were built in several western states for conserving the water-supply in dry regions.

Hydro-electric dams are built which have turbines in them.

Kept dental dams in the glove box, grew the hair under your arms to a mousey fuzz.

Its Mosquitoes were intended to be the carriers of a variation of the Wallis bomb used by No.617 Squadron on the Ruhr dams.

Earlier dams had just been created by making earth embankments.

Such dams, supplemented by simple barriers made of dirt, were used to collect floodwaters and promote deep wetting of the ground.