20 COMMEKCIAL IMPORTANCE OF WHITE MOUNTAIN FORESTS. 



200,000 spindles, besides mills that manufacture machinery, water 

 wheels, pumps, cutlery, woolen goods, and rubber goods. In five 

 leading industries in Holyoke — book binding, foundry and machine 

 products, paper and wood pulp, cotton goods, and woolen goods — 

 nearly twenty million dollars are invested (1900), employing nearly 

 ten thousand wage-earners, and producing an annual product valued 

 at more than sixteen million dollars. 



The water powers on the Connecticut serve a wide variety of uses. 

 There were, according to the Census of 1880 — the latest figures avail- 

 able — 212 mills, that used 27,815 horsepower; since 1880 there has 

 been a 20 per cent increase in the use of power. Of these mills, 52 

 are sawmills, 31 are paper mills, 31 are for woodworking, 28 are for 

 metal working, 15 are flour mills, 8 each are cotton and woolen mills, 

 2 are silk mills, and 23 are for other purposes. The paper mills used 

 15,006 horsepower, or more than half; the cotton mills, 3,441 horse- 

 power; and the rest, lesser amounts down to the 110 horsepower 

 used by the 2 silk mills. 



On the Connecticut Kiver, including its several tributaries, which 

 afford water powers even more valuable in the aggregate than those 

 upon the main stream, 2,298 mills of all kinds had been erected in 

 1880, using a total water power of 118,026. It is estimated by engi- 

 neers that the present total horsepower used on the Connecticut is 

 between 140,000 and 160,000. 



MERRIMAC RIVER. 



It is said of the Merrimac that it is "the most noted water-power 

 stream in the world." The river is formed by the union of the 

 Pemigewasset and Winnepesaukee rivers at Franklin, 110 miles from 

 the sea. Its great powers are located at Manchester in New Hamp- 

 shire, and Lowell and Lawrence in Massachusetts, while the power 

 of the Winnepesaukee at Franklin, before it joins the Pemigewasset, 

 is scarcely second to the powers on the main stream. On the tribu- 

 taries of the Merrimac, as of the Connecticut, there are extensive and 

 very valuable water privileges. 



The Pemigewasset River rises in the high slopes of the Franconia 

 range in the White Mountains, and has its source in springs, small 

 lakes, and ponds, at elevations ranging from two thousand to nearly 

 five thousand feet. a The source of the main stream lies under the 

 famous profile of the Old Man of the Mountain and is a quiet pool 

 called Profile Lake, 1,950 feet above the sea. As the flow of the 

 Pemigewasset River is variable, being in and near the high mountains, 

 with no large lakes to aid in regulating it, the conserving power of the 

 forest alone restrains it. 



a The Evergreen spring near the top of Mount Lafayette is 4,900 feet high. 

 LCir. 168] 



