Work Begun on Charles River Dam.

The Charles River Basin Commission last autumn submitted to the War Department its general construction plans for the Charles river dam. The contract has been awarded and work was begun last week. The dam will be erected a short distance below the Craigie or East Cambridge bridge, and the latter will be torn down and a temporary bridge constructed to take its traffic. The cost of the dam, which will not be completed for three years, will be about $2,500,000, or rather less than the original estimate. Unlimited appropriations have been voted by the state legislature and the work is being hurried as much as possible.

There will be two coffer-dams and a navigation lock 350 feet long, with a drawbridge and sluices. On top of the dam a roadway will be constructed to replace the Craigie bridge, and a parkway of seven acres will be laid out. The dam will turn the estuary of the Charles river into a fresh water basin, maintaining a level two feet lower than mean high water.

The commission in charge of the work consists of President H. S. Pritchett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hon. H. D. Yerxa and Hon. J. B. Holden L.'71. H. A. Miller is chief engineer.