838 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
records for the Kennebec cover a drainage area of 4,410 square miles 35 out of a total 
6,330 — i. e., about two-thirds of the river basin. The average flow is given by- 
Porter (1899) as 6,400 cubic feet per second for the four years 1893 to 1896; and 
though a great number of records have been obtained subsequently, this figure may 
be taken as representative. In other words, if this be two-thirds of the total flow 
of the river (probably it is no more, because two important tributaries enter below 
Waterville), the Kennebec River annually pours something like 300,000,000,000 cubic 
feet of water into the Gulf of Maine, or enough to flood an area of about 8,000 
square miles 35 to the depth of 1 foot. The discharge from the Merrimac is about 
the same in relation to the area of its watershed — i. e., an average of about 6,800 
cubic feet per second (8 years, 1890 to 1897) from about 4,553 square miles. Flow 
measurements of the Androscoggin, taken at Rumford Falls, Me., at which point the 
river receives the run-off from one-half to two-thirds of its total watershed of 3,700 
square miles, give a mean of 3,884 cubic feet per second for the years 1893 to 1901, 
suggesting about 6,400 for the entire watershed of this river. The discharge from 
the Penobscot, with its larger drainage area (8,500 square miles) , averaged about 
23,500 cubic feet per second for the years 1899 to 1901 (Pressey, 1902), at White 
Plorse rips, where it drains 7,240 square miles of its total watershed of 8,500, indicating 
a total run-off of not less than 28,000 cubic feet per second. By a simple arith- 
metical calcuation the combined discharge from these four rivers alone is sufficient to 
raise the whole level of the Gulf of Maine, out to its southern rim, by about 1 Yi feet 
per year. 
This does not include the St. John, the largest tributary of all, with a watershed 
more extensive than those of the Merrimac, Androscoggin, and Kennebec combined 
(p. 521), but for which no definite record of its discharge is available; nor of the dis- 
charges from the many lesser streams— the Saco, for example, the Presumpscot, the 
St. Croix, and many smaller. However, the general physical features and vegeta- 
tion of northern Maine and of such parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as are 
tributary to the gulf are comparatively uniform, as is the rainfall. Consequently, 
it is fair to assume that at least as large a proportion of the rain that falls on the 
watershed of the St. John and of the other unmeasured streams reaches the sea as 
from the following watersheds where this run-off has actually been measured. The 
run-off from the St. John watershed may, indeed, be expected to be greater, the rain- 
fall in the interior of New Brunswick being heavier than it is over most of Maine. 
River 
Locality 
Area of 
watershed, 
square 
miles 
Period 
Annual run-ofl, depth in inches, 
for watershed 0 
Maximum 
Minimum 
Mean 
Merrimac. 
Androscoggin 
Kennebec. 
Lawrence, Mass. 
Rumford Falls, Me. 
Waterville, Me 
4,452 
2,090 
4, 270 
6,600 
1,420 
1907-1917 
(1893-1902 
\1907— 1917 
1893-1916 
1907-1917 
f 1903 
\1907-1911 
24. 14 
} 28. 66 
32. 45 
32. 06 
| 30. 52 
13.12 
14. 28 
12. 73 
14.01 
14.96 
17. 29 
22.35 
23. 08 
25. 94 
24.14 
Penobscot 
St. Croix ... _ 
West Enfield, Me... 
Woodland (Spragues Falls), Me 
“The statistics on which this and the following tables are based will be found in Porter (18f)9) , Pressey (1902), Barrows 
(1907), and in U. S. Qeoglogical Survey Water-Supply Papers Nos. 97, 201, 241, 261, 301, 321, 361, 381, 401, 431, 451, and 481. 
35 Nautical miles. 
