
Figure 4.—EL.is CURRENT METER of the earliest type such as that used by Price at Clayton, 
Iowa, in 1881 and Paducah, Kentucky, in 1882. 
by author.) 
cemetery ... no trains and no business . . . hungry 
men and women went into abandoned stores and took 
what they wanted. All of this in the latter half of the last 
century. 
From St. Louis the fleeing survey party proceeded to 
Mound City, Illinois, on the Ohio River, close to its 
confluence with the Mississippi. There it remained 
until the yellow fever epidemic subsided. 
By October 12, 1880, Price was placed in charge of 
a stream-gaging party with headquarters at Clayton, 
Iowa, on the Mississippi River. His was one of sev- 
eral such parties the Commission organized for obtain- 
ing records of discharge, slope, and sediment 
movement in the upper Mississippi River. ‘The other 
parties were located at Prescott, Wisconsin; Winona, 
Minnesota; Hannibal and St. Louis, Missouri; and 
Grafton, Illinois. 
The devices then available to Price’s party for meas- 
uring stream velocities were rod floats similar to those 
shown in figure 3 and an Ellis current meter similar 
to that shown in figure 4. In his official report of 
May 10, 1883, to the Mississippi River Commission, 
Price described the work he and his party had per- 
formed with these devices as follows: 
During the entire (1880-1881) season, 222 velocity 
observations [i.e., discharge measurements] were made, 
of which 85 were with the meter, and 137 with rod-floats. 
Besides the regular velocity observations for discharge, 
there were taken 36 sets of vertical observations . 
Until the breaking up of the ice on March 29, 1881, all 
of the velocity observations were measured with the 
meter. After the ice stopped running, April 12, 1881, all 
PAPER 70: 
WILLIAM GUNN PRICE AND THE PRICE CURRENT METERS 
(USNM cat. no. 317669; photo taken 
of the velocity observations were taken with the rod-floats, 
used in connection with the plant. 
Price’s party remained at Clayton, making stream- 
flow measurements on the average of about one in 
every two days from December 7, 1880, to October 
24, 1881.° 
During the winter months of 1880-81, Price rated 
his Ellis current meter six times. The expression 
“rating a current meter’ refers to the operation 
whereby the meter is moved through still water at 
many different speeds with simultaneous observations 
made of the rate at which its impeller (sometimes 
called the meter’s rotor—the instrument’s primary 
moving part) revolves. An electrical contact, which 
occurs at each revolution or in some instances at every 
fifth revolution, actuates a counting device which 
facilitates counting those revolutions. From the data 
thus obtained, rating tables are prepared which show 
how many revolutions are made by the impeller 
within a selected period of time when the meter is 
moved through water at any velocity. Although such 
data are usually obtained while moving the meter 
through still water, the same results would be pro- 
duced if the meter was held still and the water was 
moving, under which conditions the meter is used in 
the field. 
6 The results of those measurements are published on pp. 
2243-2248, vol. 2, part 3, of the Report of the Secretary of 
War, 48th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives 
Executive Document no. 1, part 2, 1883 (serial 2185). 
45 
