moving to Rhode Island, then a wilderness he said he did so "to escape the Lord Brethren." The Puritans of Boston were no more to his taste than were the high churchmen of England. Blackstone was the original settler in the seclusion on the banks of the river, his only companions his books, his mode of conveyance a trained bull. A marble tablet in the floor of one of the largest mills on the river now marks the spot where he was buried and steam trains and trolley lines intersect and roar along the routes over which his bull bore him.

Almost from his day, however, the river has paid its tax in helping turn the wheels of human industry. It is two and a half centuries now since Joseph Jenks dipped the buckets of his undershot wheel into the waters of the stream at Pawtucket. At Pawtucket, too, Samuel Slater applied power to the spin

ning of cotton, building the first power cotton mill in the country and blazing the slender trail which has since become such a broad path, traversed by square miles of cotton spindles whirling in an industry that has become one of the greatest in the world. From that day to this the amount of water-power that the stream has furnished has steadily increased, nor has the maximum been yet reached, in spite of the fact that the river exceeds all others in its labors, in proportion to its size. Approximately one-third of the power now supplied by the river is used in Massachusetts, the business end of the river, so to speak, being in Rhode Island, where the remaining two-thirds is applied.

The river in its day has seen many changes in the growth and application of power. On it water power has grown from the slender force of the undershot

wheel by the river bank through the various varieties of breast wheel and overshot to the latest marvels of whirling turbines which of recent years have been taking the places of other forms along its banks. Its old time free and turbulent current has been dammed and restrained until now the reaches of the river are like one placid lake after another, climbing by steps from the high

tide level below the Pawtucket dam to

the hills among which it has its source. That the flow of water may be the more even to the mills using it and requiring constant service the year round, it and its tributaries have become almost one constant series of mill ponds, ranging in size from a large lake, Quinsigamond, near the city of Worcester, to the tiniest backwater beyond some little dam. Thus in a region practically deforested these numerous ponds become an efficient substitute for forest areas, the only known. successful one, conserving the waters.

Yet with all this care in the utilization of its resources the Blackstone River is far from being completely harnessed. Competent engineers have demonstrated that almost half of the valuable water flowing through it to the sea escapes without turning a wheel, simply running over

the spillways in time of flood or when the mills are idle, at night or on holidays. In the driest of summer weather this is not in evidence. Then the supply in the ponds and reservoirs is well drawn down and during the resting time at night these rarely fill again to overflow. But except for three months in the year more water goes down stream nightly than is

required to turn the wheels during the day while in spring the yellow flood roaring over the spillways to the sea carries off many times the amount left behind to find the working outlets and turn the wheels that turn the spindles. Take, for instance, the measurements made near the source at Mill Brook in Worcester. The ininimum flow of this

brook, which has been the subject of much careful investigation, is 750,000 gallons per day. On the other hand its average flow for the year is 13,000,000 gallons per day, while in time of freshet it may discharge as much as 1,000,000,000 gallons in twenty-four hours, almost eighty times its average. If you will

add to this the scores of tributaries of this size first and last that flow into the ultimate river bed down Pawtucket and Woonsocket way it will readily, be seen that in time of freshet a vast volume of water goes to waste, even through the

main channel of the much harnessed Blackstone. To conserve this waste, for every million gallons means dollars to the men whose water wheels they might turn if properly held back, plans are already carefully. worked out for the holding of this freshet water.

Two reservoirs have been selected on main tributaries where opportunity exists for convenient holding dams. At one of these on the Chepacket River the dam would raise the water twenty-five feet, making available more than 326,000,000 cubic feet of water, permitting a draft of

over 90,000 cubic feet per second for a hundred ten hour days. This would give to every manufacturer with a fifteen foot fall an additional one hundred fifteen horse-power all the year through. A similar dam on the Nipmunk River, another tributary, would give a reservoir

covering one hundred thirty-nine acres of land to a depth of eleven feet and this would add a little over twenty-one

MODERN ELECTRICALLY OPERATED MILL,

horse-power to that of every manufacturer having a fifteen foot fall. It will readily be seen from this that the conservation of energy, even on this remarkable river has but just begun.

With the modern turbines has come the latest word in water wheels. It is