(Excerpt from Experiments on the Flow of Water in the Six-...)
Excerpt from Experiments on the Flow of Water in the Six-Foot Steel and Wood Pipe Line of the Pioneer Electric Power Company, at Ogden, Utah: Second Series Six pressure stations, located at the ends of the three portions of pipe above mentioned, were occupied. For convenience of reference, these stations have been designated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, beginning at the lower end of the steel pipe. Mercury gauges were used at all stations except No. 6, at the upper end of the long section of wood pipe. At this point the pressure was so small that a water piezometer was used. At Stations Nos. 4 and 5 were placed the gauges used in 1897, and their description need not be repeated here. The only change made in these gauges was the attachment of fixed scales for the purpose of reading the position of the mercury in the reservoirs. The gauges used at Stations Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were open manometers similar to the others, but of a modified design. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Frederic was born on November 11, 1851 at Calais, Maine, United States. He was the son of William Henry Clark Stearns and Mary (Hobbs) Hill Stearns. Stearns came of sturdy New England stock and was a descendant of Isaac Stearns, who became a freeman of Watertown, Massachussets, in 1631.
After attending the Calais public schools he worked for a short time for a local business concern, but when he was eighteen went to Boston, found a job with the city engineering department, and began to study civil engineering.
By 1872 Stearns was engaged in responsible work upon the Sudbury River water supply of Boston and in 1880 he became division engineer on the sewage tunnel under Dorchester Bay.
In 1886 Stearns was called by the State Board of Health to become its chief engineer. This board, newly reorganized, had been placed in charge of the state's inland waters, and empowered to advise the various municipalities with regard to sanitation and water supply. This was pioneer work, requiring great sense and soundness in making decisions, and the influence which the Board acquired was due largely to the good judgment, tact, and fairness of its chief engineer. His exhaustive studies of water supplies and the means of controlling and improving them have become the basis for practice in many other states.
He also made plans for the sewerage of the Mystic and Charles River valleys which were adopted and carried out, and planned the improvement of the Charles River Basin--later carried out with his advice as consultant--by which the foul tidal estuary of the Charles was converted into a beautiful fresh-water basin.
These water works were widely recognized as examples of the best practice in this field. They included as an innovation a provision by which the fall of water into the aqueduct was utilized for the development of power, a feature productive of increased revenue for the metropolitan water district.
After completion of the Boston metropolitan water supply, Stearns withdrew as chief engineer and became consultant for the board as well as for many other municipalities. His more important projects included water-supply problems of New York City, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhod Island, Rochester, New York, Worcester, Massachussets, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, and sewerage for Baltimore, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. He also did much important consultation work upon dams and other difficult structures.
In 1905 he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as a member of the board of consulting engineers to consider plans for the Panama Canal. He was one of the minority who advocated a lock canal, the type which was adopted. He later served upon another board appointed by President Roosevelt to accompany Secretary of War William H. Taft to Panama and subsequently to revise the plans for the Gatun dam.
He died in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts on December 1, 1919.
Frederic Pike Stearns's most notable piece of work as engineer for the State Board of Health was the design, utilizing the Nashua River, for the metropolitan water supply of Boston and its vicinity. When this plan was adopted in 1895, he became chief engineer of the new metropolitan water board which carried it to completion in 1907 at a cost of $40, 000, 000. Stearns published many important papers in the engineering field, among the more significant of which were the following: "On the Current-Meter"; "Experiments on the Flow of Water in a 48-Inch Pipe"; "Disposal of Sewage in Massachusetts"; "The Effect of Storage upon the Quality of Water"; "The Selection of Sources of Water Supply". He also contributed many discussions of other papers and was chairman of the special committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers which reported upon methods of evaluating public utilities, as well as of the committee upon yield of drainage areas of the New England Water Works Association, which presented a report of much value that has been widely used. In 1900 Mr. Stearns was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Exposition for his exhibit of the Metropolitan Water Supply Works and for work in the water-supply field.
(Excerpt from Experiments on the Flow of Water in the Six-...)
Stearns was a member of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, an honorary member of the New England Water Works Association, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Mr. Stearns was intensely human and service was his governing thought. Erect and dignified, he had a simplicity and directness of manner which attracted. Men came to him sure of his friendly interest and sound counsel. Underneath one felt instinctively his force of character, his poise and strength of purpose. As his decisions were the result of thought and careful study of details, he had the ability to face strong opposition undismayed, and hold to his point. Thoroughness in the analysis of his problem and deliberate action were fundamental with him, and deservedly gave great weight to his conclusions.
Quotes from others about the person
As one historian has written: "His only freedom was to work at the lowest wage and under the worst conditions acceptable to his hungriest rival anywhere, or not to work at all. "
On June 21, 1876, Stearns married Addie C. Richardson of Framingham, Massachussets, who died two years before her husband. Two sons, both engineers, survive them, Herbert R. Stearns and Ralph H. Stearns, Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E.
