THE MISSISSIPPT VALLEY. 55 



WATER POWER. 



The reservoirs which it is proposed to form primarily for the improvement of 

 the navigation, will be productive of many incidental benefits, apart from their 

 influence upon the floods and the commerce of the country. 



In the progress of society the power furnished by the rivers, limited to their 

 low-water supply, often becomes inadequate to the wants of the population on 

 their borders. This power may be vastly increased by the creation of small 

 lakes to retain the surplus which is ordinarily wasted, until the natural flow 

 becomes insufficient, even where the navigation forms no part of the ultimate 

 object. 



In the far West there are great rivers which send their periodic floods to the 

 Gulf of Mexico, through plains of vast extent, which are waste and sterile for 

 want of water. There is no navigation because the streams are dry. The lands 

 are unproductive, because, at certain seasons, there is no rain. Yet, the floods 

 of winter, if properly controlled, would suffice to irrigate the soil, extend naviga- 

 tion far into the interior, furnish power to manufacture the products which they 

 would create, and thus spread wider the area of civilization. 



The water need not be discharged directly at the site of the dam, and suffered 

 to spend its power in producing the discharge ; but it may be led off", by appro- 

 priate mains, to suitable ground for manufacturing establishments, and be there 

 applied to useful machinery. In its descent it may be arrested from point to 

 point, brought many times into service, and finally sent on its last mission of 

 good into the stream which it will make navigable, and capable of conveying 

 the products which it has already aided to manufacture. 



The water contained in the reservoirs upon the Alleghany could be advanta- 

 geously used for the manufacture of all the lumber sent down that stream ; and 

 these reservoirs, ultimately extending navigation along that river into the State 

 of New York, and connecting the navigable waters of the Mississippi with those 

 of the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, by the Erie railroad and its branches, will 

 be needed, in the progress of time, to furnish the power for the manufacture of 

 the products of a vast area along the Ohio, as well as around the northern 

 borders. 



Thus a small portion of the cost of the artificial fountains of a single chateau 

 would, in this country, enable us to control the floods of a river surpassing in 

 grandeur the noblest stream of Europe— maintain, constantly, an uninterrupted 

 navigation of 1,300 miles— create a water power sufficient to convert into useful 

 forms the products of aff the country watered by the tributary streams, and give 

 rise to cities which it would incidentally adorn with fountams, such as the 

 wealth of the " Great Monarch" of the last century could not purchase. 



