HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



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mate — that the only way in which these states can be compared 

 with New York is on equivalent areas. If, in comparing the 

 States of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island with New 

 York on this basis, we find that the aggregate wealth per unit of 

 area is greater, we may be very sure not only that there is a good 

 reason for it, but, as will be shown further on, that the real 

 reason is largely due to mistaken views in New York as to the 

 State's attitude towards the developing of manufacturing. The 

 main reasons why the development of water power versus steam 

 power has been so different in the leading New England States 

 from what it has been in New York are as follows : 



AYatcr power reservoirs in Neto England. In the New England 

 States, as well as in most of the southern and in several 

 western States, there are a series of statutory enactments which 

 are designed to encourage the erection of mills. Under their pro- 

 visions parties desiring to flow the lands of others for the pur- 

 pose of creating water power to propel mills may do so under 

 condemnation proceedings analogous to those for acquiring lands 

 and property for canals, railways and other public purposes. This 

 peculiar extension of the principle of eminent domain has grown 

 out of the original conditions of interdependence of the early 

 colonists to whom mills for grinding grain were among the neces- 

 sities of life. The first mill acts originated in Massachusetts and 

 Virginia, from whence they have been adopted into the statutes 

 of many of the other States. 



In order to show what may be accompli shed in a comparatively 

 small State by properly encouraging manufacturing, we will refer 

 to conditions as existing in the State of Massachusetts. This 

 State has always been mindful of the interest of manufacturing, 

 and accordingly at the beginning of the eighteenth century a mill 

 act was enacted, and while the original act was merely intended 

 to encourage the erection of grain and flour mills, it has been 

 gradually extended to include all kinds of manufacturing operated 

 by water power on the ground that the Commonwealth was di- 

 rectly concerned in the development of all such. The writer has 

 no intention of discussing the mill acts of Massachusetts in detail, 

 and wishes merely to point out that such acts have also been 

 enacted in Maine. Wisconsin. Rhode Island, Xew Hampshire, Con- 



