WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



25 



United States, the use of steam increased from 500 to 700 per 

 cent, while the use of waterpower remained almost the same for 

 the whole time. The building of railroads made coal cheap and 

 plentiful and it was more convenient to use it than to develop 

 waterpower. Besides, in recent years only has it been found 

 practicable to carry waterpower long distances by electricity. 

 Formerly it was necessary to locate the power plants near the 

 place where the power was to be used, and that generally made 

 waterpower unavailable. It is now practicable to transport 

 power long distances by wire, and this fact ought to open the 

 way to the development of waterpower in remote and rugged 

 regions which was impossible a few years ago. Power might 

 be profitably carried by electricity from any point in West 

 Virginia to any other point. Water thus used is a resource 

 that can never be exhausted. It cannot be used up so long as 

 rains fall and rivers flow. West Virginia has a very liberal 

 share of this resource. Its money value cannot be estimated 

 except at so much per horsepower. Taking that at $20 a year, 

 the full development would pay 6 per cent on a capitalization 

 of $330,000,000. 



"The impounding of water in enormous reservoirs by 

 building dams across valleys high in the mountains would not 

 be an experiment. Work of a like kind is being carried on in 

 different parts of the country, especially in the west where the 

 water is made available both for irrigation and for power. 

 Some of the dams rank with the world's greatest engineering 

 feats, and they make possible the development of resources 

 which have lain idle in all past time. Reservoirs are being 

 built of sufficient capacity to store the entire flow of a river for 

 many months. West Virginia has many excellent sites for stor- 

 age reservoirs^ some being 2,000 or 3,000 feet in elevation, 

 others lower. The development of this resource, from the 

 nature of the case, will take a long time. Power will be pro- 

 duced faster than it can be used, 



"The construction of systems of dams in the mountain 

 valleys would serve other useful purposes than the develop- 

 ment of waterpower. The storing of a large part of the storm 

 water would lessen floods and lower rivers, and much of the 



