From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/29/1912, p. 8, c. 6

COSTS BIG SUM TO PROTECT PARK
Fifty Thousand Dollars Needed to Prevent Chimborazo From Sliding.

The subcommittee on parks of the Council Committee on Grounds and Buildings held an extended meeting last night for consultation with the City Engineer as to improvements to be made in the parks of the city this year. Mr. Bolling stated that with the demands of the various parks, and the comparatively small amount available at this time, that it was hardly practicable to undertake the extensive work that will be needed to prevent the disastrous slides in Chimborazo Park without some special appropriation.

To do that work properly and thoroughly protect the entire park, he said, would probably cost from $40,000 to $50,000. In the past two weeks there have been two disastrous slides, one of which blocked the tracks of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway for several days, and the other on the other side has blocked one of the main driveways, destroyed much valuable property and broken both grand-lithic walks and special work around the fountain.

Mr. Bolling explained that examination showed that the underlying soil was a blue marl clay, which has a scaly surface. After heavy rains, when water percolates through the upper strata of clay and gravel, the lower surface becomes slippery, and from time to time the whole upper levels of terrace, walkways and other improvements have shown a tendency to slip down hill, sometimes moving whole trees and large sections of walkways for several feet. Mr. Bolling explained methods by which the hill sides might be protected by securing foundations for walls deep in the blue clay subsoil with a drainage system to that which has recent been used with good effect by French engineers in handling similar conditions about Paris, where some very disastrous slides are reported to have occurred, some of them carrying down whole rows of houses.

A slide in Chimborazo Park more than a year ago carried down a large section of Thirty-first Street, together with a sewer draining a large area, which proved expensive to replace.

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