born on October 22, 1831, joined Greeley’s Union 
Colony when it migrated to the Cache la Poudre 
Valley and founded the town of Greeley, Colorado. 
As the colony’s engineer-in-chief, Nettleton laid out 
the town, surveyed the farms, and planned the irriga- 
tion system. In March 1883 he was appointed state 
engineer of Colorado, an office he held for four years. 
During his first year in office, he designed a current 
meter. In his biennial report for 1883-84 he 
remarked: 
At first the Fteley current meter was used for measuring 
current velocity, but it was soon apparent that this instru- 
ment was entirely too delicate for the rough torrents, filled 
with drift of all sorts, in which it was necessary to use it. 
An instrument was designed by me more suitable to the work 
(named the ‘‘Colorado” current meter)’ a description of which 
is given elsewhere. The main object kept in view in 
designing this instrument, was to make it self-clearing, the 
great defect of the Fteley meter being its liability to ‘error 
from clogging with grass, weeds, etc. which at times would 
vitiate many hours’ work... . Three “Colorado” 
meters, having been made for this department by W. E. 
Scott & Co. of Denver; these instruments have since been 
in continuous use in gauging rivers and ditches giving 
entire satisfaction. 
Photographs of Nettleton and of one of the current 
meters built by W. E. Scott & Co. are shown in 
figures 12 and 13 respectively. In addition to having 
been referred to as the Colorado and the Scott current 
meter, these or very similar meters also have been 
called the Nettleton meter, after their designer; the 
Lallie meter, named after one of its later manufac- 
turers; and the Bailey meter, which was named after 
an associate of Lallie’s who worked out the design 
wherein the exposed counting wheels were placed 
within a glass-covered enclosure. One of the Bailey 
meters, from the collection of the Museum of History 
and Technology, is shown in figure 14. 
The early irrigation work performed in Colorado, 
Nebraska, and California demonstrated that there 
was a considerable need for a small current meter like 
Nettleton’s that could be carried about easily and that 
was convenient to handle when used for measuring 
the flow of shallow streams. Moreover, beginning in 
1888, when extensive stream-gaging programs were 
undertaken by the United States Geological Survey, 
the need for such meters became greatly enhanced. 
As a matter of fact, the impact of that Federal agency 
8 Italics are the author’s. 
PAPER 70: WILLIAM GUNN PRICE AND THE 
PRICE CURRENT METERS 51 

Figure 12.—Epwin S. NETTLETON, State engineer of 
Colorado who designed the Colorado current meter 
in 1883. (From “Eleventh Biennial Report of the 
State Engineer to the Governor of Colorado,” 
1901-02.) 
on the design and general use of current meters was 
so great that a full discussion seems warranted here. 
Although the Geological Survey was organized in 
1879, with its first office provided by and situated in 
the Smithsonian Institution, stream gaging did not be- 
come one of its activities until President Cleveland 
approved a Sundry Civil Appropriations Act on 
October 2, 1888. That act provided $100,000 for the 
establishment of an Irrigation Survey. Within that 
Irrigation Survey was a sub-unit called the Hydro- 
graphic Survey, the main purpose of which was to 
obtain streamflow measurements in areas where the 
practicability of irrigation was likely to depend upon 
the quantity of available water. 
Neither John Wesley Powell, then director of the 
Geological Survey, nor Clarence E. Dutton, chief of 
Powell’s new Hydrographic Survey, were acquainted 
with suitable means for measuring such water supplies. 
Under Captain Dutton’s orders, therefore, a party of 
young engineers was quickly organized and rushed to 
the tiny village of Embudo, New Mexico, on the Rio 
Grande about 45 miles north of Santa Fe, to determine 
the best manner in which to make such measurements 
