Three Gorges assisted Yu the Great in controling the waters and guiding boatmen. The Xiling Gorge comprises a series of famous gorges, including Military Book and Sword Gorge, Yellow Cow Gorge, and Lantern's Shadow Gorge. In 1919, after Sun Yat-sen had put forward the concept in the Plan for Industrial Development of his (), experts investigated damming the Three Gorges, but it was not until 1994 that the Three Gorges project officially started. In 1944, the Nationalist government recruited John L. Savage, the Chief Engineer of the United States Bureau of Reclamation, who came to China and made a 10-day investigation of
Three Gorges Dam spillway gates of the dam might pose a risk of cavitation, similar to that which severely damaged the poorly designed and cavitating spillways of the Glen Canyon Dam in the US state of Arizona, which was unable to properly withstand the Colorado river floods of 1983. However, 163,000 concrete units of the Three Gorges dam all passed quality testing and the deformation was within design limits. An experts group gave the project overall a good quality rating. In order to maximize the utility of the Three Gorges Dam and cut down on sedimentation from the Jinsha River, the upper course