nation was then in the second year of a financial 
depression. Despite the obstacles, he induced Senator 
William V. Allen of Nebraska, a state which then 
was keenly interested in stream gaging as an aid to 
irrigation, to offer an amendment to the pending 
Sundry Civil Appropriations Act (already passed 
by the House) providing a special item for stream- 
gaging operations in the amount of $25,000. The 
amendment was accepted by the Senate, but before 
approval the amount was to $12,500. 
Newell, nevertheless, had accomplished his purpose 
and the funds 
purpose of stream gaging granted by Congress— 
became available to the Geological Survey on August 
18, 1894. With those funds, the Geological Survey 
reestablished its of Hydrography and 
appointed Newell, who in his career in the fields 
reduced 

the first appropriation for the specific 
Division 
of hydrography and irrigation rose to such eminence 
that he has often been referred to as the father of 
systematic stream gaging, as its hydrographer-in- 
charge. From this small beginning has grown one 
of the world’s largest organizations devoted to stream 
gaging. During the course of its existence, it has, 
incidentally, made use of several thousands of current 
meters. 
The passage of the appropriation bill created a 
further renewal of interest in the design of current 
Nettleton’s Colorado meters, which had 
ranked high in popularity during the period when 
the old Irrigation Survey was in operation, were 
found subsequently to be “‘so delicate that the cost 
of repairs has become a serious matter, and on the 
score of economy it has seemed advisable to condemn 
them as they became worn.”* When the Survey’s 
newly established division of hydrography purchased 
additional current meters, the small Haskell type 
meters. 
manufactured by E. S. Ritchie & Sons, of Brookline, 
Massachusetts, was most frequently selected. But that 
screw-type meter enjoyed only a brief period of 
popularity. The turning point occurred in March 
1895 when Professor O. V. P. Stout of the University 
of Nebraska borrowed his University’s model 376 
Large Price current meter (Gurley’s no. 37) and made 
a streamflow measurement with it—the first measure- 
ment ever to have been made with a Price meter in 
behalf of the Geological Survey. Stout, one of the 
Survey’s per diem employees, seemed very much 
9 FrepericK Haynes NEweE .t, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 
740 (1896), p. 15. 
54 BULLETIN 252: 
pleased with the meter’s performance, and two months 
later the Survey acquired its first Large Price current 
meter. It was a second-hand model 376, Gurley’s 
no. 55. It originally had been sold to the Montana 
College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts on 
March 24, 1894, and the college sold it to the Geologi- 
cal Survey. It was rated May 27, 1895, at the 
Survey’s rating flume at Denver, Colorado. 
It is of interest to note that whereas the firm of 
W. &.L. E. Gurley sold only 45 Large Price meters 
during the first nine years of their manufacture 
(1887 to 1895 inclusive) and those mostly to the 
Corps of Engineers, during the next nine years they 
sold 104. Of that number, 47 went to the U.S. 
Geological Survey and only 3 to the Corps of Engi- 
neers. This preponderance of sales to the Survey is 
likely to explain the special attention that Gurley 
subsequently gave to the Survey’s suggestions for 
current-meter improvements. 
Price ‘‘Acoustic’? Current Meters 
Price was the nation’s foremost authority on current 
meters for probably a longer period than anyone 
before or after his time. Beginning in 1883, one year 
after inventing his first model, and continuing for ten 
years thereafter, he directed the discharge-measuring 
operations of the Mississippi River Commission. As 
part of those duties, he wrote the official instructions 
for making such measurements, for rating current 
meters, and for taking proper care of the equipment 
used for such purposes. One set of those instructions, 
which he personally prepared, is shown in figure 16. 
He also made special studies on subjects such as 
determining the shape of the vertical-velocity curve 
and the relationship between the velocity of the water 
at mid-depth in a stream to the average velocity 
throughout the entire depth at the same spot. 
Another type of study which Price was especially 
qualified to perform is expressed in the following 
order, a copy of which was preserved in his scrapbook: 
It has been reported to me that there is probably a leak 
in the Missouri, near Great Falls, Montana. You will 
take the necessary instruments and assistants and go to 
Great Falls and determine if there is a leak, and if so, 
report on how to plug it. 
Price’s comment many years later (1927) was: 
I found the leak where the water seeps into the upturned 
edge of the Dakota sandstone, fifty miles long, through 
the canyon from Great Falls to Fort Benton. At extreme 
low water the leak was about 600 second feet. It probably 
is one source of supply for the artesian wells of South 
Dakota. 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 
