First organization chart

In his two years at the New York & Erie Railroad in 1854–55, Henshaw compiled and drew what has become known as the first modern organization chart.^[2] This chart was designed by Daniel McCallum, who was the general superintendent of the New York and Erie Railway at that time.

On the chart is written,^[5] that the diagram represents a plan of organization, and exhibits the division of administrative duties and shows the number and class of employee's engaged in each department, and is dated September 1855. The chart further explains that the diagram is compiled from the latest monthly report and indicates about the average number of employees of each class engaged in the Operating Department of the railroad company. It shows the powers and duties of each individual and to whom they are subject to report.^[5] It further describes:

By inspection it will be seen that the Board of Directors as the fountain of power, concentrates their authority in the President as the executive Officer, who in that capacity directly controls those officers who are shown on the Diagram at the termini of the lines diverging from him, and these in their turn, though all the various ramifications down to the lowest employee control those who terminate the lines from them.
All orders from the Superior officers are communicated in the above order, from superior to subordinate to the point of desired; thereby securing despatch in their execution and maintaining proper discipline without weakening the authority of the immediate superior of the subordinate controlled by the order thus transmitted. Each individual therefore holds himself responsible only to his immediate superior...^[5]

Furthermore, a table is added showing the number of offices and employee's classed. First were listed the employees in the five divisions of the New York & Erie Railroad divided in workers at the station, on trains, on repairs of trucks, and on repairs of bridges and buildings.^[5]

The chart has thought lost for years, and only located at the Library of Congress after many years of research after Alfred D. Chandler Jr. had suggested its existence. It was found by Charles D. Wrege and Guidon Sorbo Jr. They suggested that the visualization of the organizational tree probably was inspired by the shape of a local flower Salix caprea (goat willow, also known as the pussy willow, or great sallow).^[1]

Improvement of Channels in Sedimentary Rivers

In an 1889 presentation for the American Society of Civil Engineers, Henshaw laid down a theory on the improvement of channels in sedimentary rivers. Henshaw started with a general introduction about the importance of hydrological engineering works, naming Holland as modern example of a "whole country reclaimed from the sea". Waterways beside the railroad tracks elsewhere remain a prosperity of a country.^[6] Henshaw stipulates that to secure permanently navigable channel, it is not enough to protect banks or bluffs from erosion, because that "can have no effect beyond preventing a certain amount of sediment being added to that already encumbering the stream; the old varying conditions still exist over the spacious bottom, and in some way these must be altered."^[7] In order to do so there are two methods:

...the first method consists in the use of either solid dams or barriers permeable to water extending from the shore to the channel, for the double purpose of directing the latter into its desired course and accumulating sediment at its sides. The result looked for is a contraction of the river bed to the required limits, but [multiple] objections may be urged against this plan...^[7]

The second method... makes no attempt to accumulate sediment. Its object is to supply artificially to the bottom, on each side of the desired channel, that element of resistance to erosion which is essential to the ideal river ; and it relies upon the action of the inevitable law just mentioned to scour out the channel and continue to do so, to a depth only limited by the slope of the river, or by encountering a stratum that cannot be naturally eroded. By this means it is expected that the ideal river will shape itself under a strictly natural process, for it will be seen that the artificial aid introduced acts solely in supplying a natural deficiency.^[8]

Henshaws paper further explains the methods and techniques to implement this second method: "Its object is to supply artificially to the bottom, on each side of the desired channel, that element of resistance to erosion which is essential to the ideal river ; and it relies upon the action of the inevitable law just mentioned to scour out the channel and continue to do so, to a depth only limited by the slope of the river, or by encountering a stratum that cannot be naturally eroded."^[8]