Carroll Free Press

Fence for Grounds liable to be Flooded.

Mr. George Myers, of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, sends us the following description of a "flood fence," said to have been invented and patented by Wm. Miller, of Pennsylvania:

Take two posts, seven inches square and five and a half feet in length, sink them three feet in the ground, (leaving two and a half feet above ground,) wedge them firmly in with stones alone. In the side of each post, and three inches from the ground, a triangular mortise must be sunk, two inches in depth, four inches high, and five inches wide. A shallow notch in the shape of a V must be cut in the tops of the posts. A rail corresponding at the ends with the shape of this notch, is to be laid on the tops of the posts. The lower rail is then to be fitted in the triangular mortise cut in the side of the posts. This is to be done by making the ends of that rail round, like to gudgeons, which are to be inserted into the mortise, each gudgeon about two and a half inches in diameter, and of any length that may please. This done, the frame of the fence is complete and ready for the boards to be nailed up and down on the two rails. The boards should be about four feet long, and nailed on that side of the rails against which the water is likely to flow. This being finished, the fence is also finished, and the benefit of it is this: When the flood strikes against it, even at a moderate height, the round gudgeons of the lower rail will slide up the sloping sides of the mortise in which they lie, and the upper rail will, in like manner, rise out of the notches on top of the posts, and the entire panel fall flat upon the ground, secured and resting on the gudgeons of the lower rail, until the swollen stream has spent its force and flowed over it. When the swell of water has subsided, all that is to be done to restore the enclosure, is to lift up the fallen panels, which will easily turn on the gudgeons as an axle, and the fence will be again as perfect and firm as when first erected.—Albany Cultivator.