INFLUENCE OF THE FORESTS ON WATER POWER. 25 



feet undeveloped, it is doubtful if more than half can be utilized, and probably the 

 total development on the river will never exceed 60,000 net horsepower. 



Androscoggin River. — In the 167 miles between tide water at Brunswick and the 

 surface of Umbagog Lake at Errol dam, New Hampshire, there is a fall of 1,235 feet. 

 Of this amount 610 feet are developed, corresponding to about 120,000 net horsepower. 

 Of the remaining 625 feet undeveloped, possibly two-thirds will in time be utilized, 

 this corresponding to, roughly, 60,000 net horsepower, making a total for the river in the 

 future of 180,000 net horsepower, or about three times that possible on the Merrimac 

 River. 



KENNEBEC RIVER. 



The Kennebec takes its rise in Moosehead Lake, a body of water 

 120 square miles in area, with a water level variation of 7J feet, con- 

 trolled by a dam at its outlet. The power afforded by storage of 

 water in this lake is very great, and, excepting the Great Lakes, is 

 hardly equaled by any storage reservoir in the country. Twenty- 

 three streams empty into it, either directly or through the Moose 

 River, and it has a total drainage area of 1,240 square miles. At 

 Augusta, at the head of tide water on the Kennebec, the total drain- 

 age area is 5,580 square miles, and at Merrymeeting Bay, where the 

 river enters the sea, it drains 390 additional square miles, and the 

 total drainage area includes about one-fifth of the entire State of 

 Maine. Moosehead Lake is 1,026 feet above the sea, and the Kenne- 

 bec River falls, on an average, 8.55 feet per mile for 120 miles between 

 the outlet of the lake and Augusta. Only about 153 feet of this fall, 

 however, has been developed. The river basin contains 311 separate 

 lakes and ponds, which comprise altogether one-fourteenth of the 

 entire watershed. The seventeen largest towns and cities contained 

 in 1900 a total of 58,440 inhabitants, which is probably about one- 

 third of the population of this river valley. 



The upper Kennebec basin was, in 1902, covered with extensive 

 forests of spruce and aspen. These covered, on the estimate of the 

 state forest commissioner, 2,350 square miles, and contained nearly 

 4,000,000,000 feet of standing spruce suitable for lumber and pulp. 

 About one-third of all lumber and pulp used in Maine comes from 

 the Kennebec basin, and the remainder almost wholly from the 

 Androscoggin and the Penobscot basins. It has been estimated that 

 the annual drive in the main river amounts to about 150,000,000 feet 

 board measure. To float such vast quantities of timber from the 

 mountains to the sawmills and paper mills requires vast quantities of 

 water from Moosehead and the other lakes. This formerly left very 

 little to steady the flow of the river at the factories throughout the 

 rest of the season. This resulted in great friction between the Kenne- 

 bec Log Driving Company that has taken charge of the annual " drive " 

 since 1830, and the Kennebec Water Power Company that has made 

 extensive improvements along the river in order to secure an even 

 flow of water at the mills. This friction now has been removed, and 



[Cir. 168] 



