To-day there are hundreds of miles of copper and aluminum wire stretched upon steel towers and wooden poles, carrying energy a distance of from 50 to 100 miles from the source of power, and making possible the construction of mills and factories at points favorable to transportation and to health, instead of requiring the mill to be built on low ground close to the river, where ill health, and consequent poor work, are bound to follow, thus greatly reducing the output of the cotton mills.

UNDEVELOPED MOUNTAIN STREAMS

While many of the larger water powers in the Southern States are located near the fall line, most of the streams have falls of from 3 to 5 feet per mile across the Piedmont Plateau, with drops at intervals sufficient to be dignified by the name of shoals. Most of the developed powers are located at small falls ranging from 5 to 50 feet, but back in the mountains there are many localities where power could be developed in enormous quantities on streams that are at these points

enormous drops. For example, Linville River, one of the greatest wonders and beauty spots in the Eastern States, drops 1800 feet as it flows through its nine-mile gorge, while the Tallulah, Toxaway, Chattooga, and others have falls of from 500 to 2000 feet within a distance that makes their development as water powers feasible.

There can be no question that these powers will be developed, the chief reason for the delay being the lack of market in the immediate vicinity, and the fact that there are other powers now in operation or being developed which can reach the centers of population with shorter transmission lines. Many of these powers may soon be utilized by industries, perhaps of a chemical nature, in which the cost of transportation of supplies is not as important as cheap power. These mountain streams with high heads have many advantages over the low-head constructions on the rivers below, chiefly in the economy of installation, for immense masonry dams are not required, and fine artificial storage facilities are often available. Take the Linville River, for example. Ou

The total fall of all the rivers flowing from the mountains across the Southern States is large, varying from over 6000 feet in those which rise on the upper slopes of the Black Mountains, to perhaps half that amount in the streams which rise in the foothills. Theoretically this means an immense amount of available water power. It is hardly fair, however, from a practical standpoint, to consider the entire fall of a stream, but only the amount that can be developed at a cost which will be justified by the returns. An estimate of the exact amount of power available on the streams flowing from the Appalachians to the Atlantic is not practicable, but from examinations made of the various rivers there can be no doubt that there are at least 2,000,000 horsepower. A very small part of this has been developed, though in the last five years there has been greater development of water powers in the Southern States than in all the previous history of the region.

THE APPEAL TO THE MANUFACTURER

The increase in knowledge during the last decade regarding the methods of creating electric energy at high potentials, and of so insulating the conductors that from 20,000 to 100,000 volts can be generated at the power plant by water and transmitted distances of 100 miles, or even more, has had a marked effect upon the value of water power and upon the general industrial growth of nearly all regions where there are undeveloped powers.

When it is shown to a prospective manufacturer that electric power can be delivered to his factory ready for use at a price of perhaps $20 per horsepower per year, and that in building his plant it will not be necessary to install boilers, engines, heavy shafting, or belting, but that the power can be taken directly from the wires to the generator in his mill, that practically all of the attendance necessary to the maintenance of a steam plant is done away with, and that all difficulties due to delay in the transportation of coal or to coal shortages are avoided, it is likely to have a decided effect in determining the question where his factory shall be located. There are many cities in the South which are being developed in this way. The first use of electric power has been in the old factories, principally cotton mills, but diversified

in the New England States, which owe their location entirely to a fall in a river which could be utilized for power. Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke, Lewiston, and many other cities in New England would never have existed in their present locations had it not been for the fall in the river at those particular points.

Many large mills recently constructed in the South have installed individual electric motors operated from a large steam plant, the power being transmitted through the mill entirely by electricity. These mills are in a position to take advantage of the development of water powers, for the current, after being transformed to a lower voltage, can be directly connected with the motors in the mill and the mill be operated partially or wholly by water power. If during the low-water period there is scarcity of power, the steam plant can be used as a temporary auxiliary and the remaining current from the water power be utilized in places where steam plants are not available.

In northern climates the users of water powers are in the winter months frequently troubled with ice, usually in the form of anchor-ice, which forms in the canal and blocks the wheels. While in most parts of the Southeastern States where water powers are available there is more or less snow and ice each year, the quantities are small and there is never difficulty from anchor-ice. The milder climate is also of great advantage in the construction and maintenance of the transmission line, for the weight of the ice on the wires is the most severe test of the strength of the copper or aluminum wire itself and of its support. CONDITIONS AFFECTING STREAM

THE SOUTH

FLOW IN

The value of a region for water-power development depends first upon the amount of power that can be economically developed, and, second, upon the possibility of utilizing power for industrial purposes. The amount of power that can be developed depends upon the fall and flow of the rivers. The flow of a stream depends upon several physical features, such as rainfall, evaporation, storage by lakes, marshes, or the soil, vegetation, including forests, geology of the rocks and soil, particularly their perviousness to water, contour of slope, and length of drainage lines, which to a large extent determine the

time required for the water to reach the rivers after it is precipitated from the atmosphere.

The annual rainfall of the United States varies from nothing in certain arid regions of the West to over 100 inches per annum on the extreme northwestern coast, in a small section of Florida, a small strip on the coast of the Carolinas, and in the great Appalachian mountain region of the Southeastern States. Along the northeastern coast it varies from 30 to 50 inches, which increases as the mountains are approached, until in the high mountain ranges of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee the rainfall reaches 70 inches in most years, while at intervals or in certain regions the extremely high figure of 100 to 105 inches is attained. This very high precipitation means much to the development of water powers on the streams rising in the Southern Appalachians, where from 50 to 100 per cent. more water falls during the year than in some water-power regions of the country. Quite as important as the quantity is the very even distribution of this precipitation throughout the year, thus giving a reasonably even natural flow to the rivers fed from these mountain slopes.

Were it not for the high and comparatively uniform precipitation, the water powers of the South would be of little value, especially during the low-water periods of the year, for in all the Southeastern States there is not a single lake or pond of any consider

able size that serves as a reservoir for the storage of flood flows and as an equalizer of the river discharge. In some States, for instance New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Maine, great natural lake basins have been carved in the rocks, and the outlets to these basins have gradually filled, thus forming large fresh-water lakes, which serve as regulators for the streams. The Southern rivers flowing into the Atlantic and the eastern part of the Gulf, however, are deprived of these natural regulating basins, and depend entirely upon the distribution of rainfall and the natural storage of water in the soil. Even marshes of any size are practically unknown along these Southern streams.

On the other hand, the soil of the Southern Atlantic States is generally porous, consisting, on the coastal plain, of great areas of sandy soil, and further back of great tracts of clay intermingled with sand and gravel and thus pervious to water. On the steep slopes, and usually to the very summits of the highest mountains of the Southern Appalachians, the soil has been formed by the disintegration of rock in place. It reaches great depths, even on the mountains, and absorbs the rain water like a sponge, gradually giving it out in the form of springs and mountain streams, which perpetually flow from the mountain side in even the driest seasons, producing a comparatively uniform flow in the rivers. Not all of the Southern streams, however, are fed by mountain springs, for several of the large rivers rise on the Piedmont Plateau, which

is below the mountain regions, and these lack both the high precipitation and the natural regulation of the soil, which are features of the mountain region.

A comparison of the flow of the rivers along the Atlantic Coast is interesting and shows the effect of the distribution of rainfall and of the geology and topography of the river basins. For example, the rivers of Maine, with its great lake area, have dis charges comparatively uniform, this uniformity being usually increased by artificial dams at the lake outlets, until the very highest efficiency in regulation is reached, as, for example, in the Cobasseecontee, which has a variation in flow throughout the year of less than 5 per cent. Many other New England streams, regulated also by lakes, have comparatively uniform flows, as do most of the rivers of New York State. Passing south, however, in the Potomac, we have a river with no storage basins, with steep, narrow, and rocky valleys from which the rainfall quickly reaches the river channel, producing extreme fluctuations of flow, varying, on the Potomac above Washington, from a minimum flow of 1000 cubic feet per second to a maximum of 250,000 cubic feet per second, on a drainage basin of about 11,000 square miles. The next rivers to the south, the James, Roanoke, and Cape Fear, rise to the east of the mountain ranges and have extremes of high and low water which greatly increase the difficulty and expense of developing water powers and reduce the efficiency of the streams during the low-water period. Passing southward, the Catawba, Yadkin, Broad, and Savannah all rise either on the higher mountain slopes or in the foothills of the mountains. They have high and uniform precipitation at their sources, porous soils in most parts of their drainage basins, and flows which may be called uniform, thus making them streams of exceptional value for the development of water power. Still farther south, the Coosa and the Black Warrior rise below the mountain region, and the latter is subject to variations in the elevation of its water surface of over 50 feet, making water power development almost impracticable.

Conditions entirely different are found in the Western streams, which vary from the practically useless, from a water-power standpoint, so-called lost rivers of the great American desert, to the uniform-flowing rivers rising in the Rocky Mountains, fed in the wet season by almost constant precip

itation and in the dry season by the melting of the glaciers on the mountain slopes, thus giving a flow that is almost ideal.

The fall due to geologic conditions also varies in different parts of the country. The fall of streams in New York and New England is largely in vertical drops over shelves in the archean rock, or, as in the case of the Niagara, is produced by the breaking away of a hard rocky stratum due to the undermining of some softer formation which underlies it. In the Southeastern States, except for the comparatively small streams in the mountains, vertical falls in the rivers are extremely rare, nearly all of the so-called "falls" being a series of shoals or rapids, in some cases extending for miles down the river and requiring the construction of a high masonry dam at the foot of the shoals, which will often back the water up for ten to twenty miles. While the development of power on these streams requires extensive purchases of riparian rights, it has the advantage of the creation of a reservoir, frequently of large capacity, but at least sufficient to store the water flowing during the night for use through the wheels on the following day.

THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN FORESTS

Because of the lack in the South of natural storage in lakes and marshes, anything that tends to equalize the flow of the rivers. thereby increasing the amount of power that can be developed continuously throughout the year, is of the utmost economic value. The Southern Appalachian Mountains differ from the Rockies of the West and from the mountains of New England, both in their general topography and in their geologic features. In traveling through the Southern Appalachians one is surprised at the lack of cliffs and rocky ledges, and notes instead a smooth topography covered with at heavy forest growth. These forests are today the most extensive hardwood timber tracts in the country. They contain a great variety of trees, the forest growth varying with the elevation. Most of the mountains are forested to their summits, where the hardy conifers thrive. The deep, finegrained soil and the abundance of moisture make this an ideal region for forest growth. As a matter of fact, about 60 per cent. of this mountain region must be for all time devoted to forest growth, or it will become a sterile wilderness. Without the tree roots and the humus, which protects the soil, the fine. particles of clay are unable to withstand the