Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-10-21
A Grand Improvement for the district OF
Columbia.


Columbia.
l. is at length becoming apparent that
the water power at the Great Falls OF the
Potomac is about to be put to profitable
use. The distant public may not know
that, by scientific examination, it has
been demonstrated that this power is
EQUAL to at least six times that afforded
by the Falls of the Merrimac, at Lowell,
which has done more to increase the
wealth of Boston within the last twenty
five years, than all her railroads COM
bined: five millions of profits in the way
of net proceeds of its 1.-THE water power s.
rent, having actually been divided among
those owning that stock. 1t has also,
again and again, been made apparent by
scientific and practical surveys, that the
cost of bringing this so valuable power
into use will be a bagatelle, in COMPARE
son with the amount expended to that
end at Lowell, the old Potomac Com
pany's Canal ION the Virginia side being
still in condition to serve well for sup
plying race. The location is immediate
ly on the lire of the Alexandria and Lou
don and Hampshire Railroad: while on
the other side of the river. the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal leads to Washington and
Alexandria in one direction, and to Cum
berland, Nd, in the other. The States
of Virginia and Maryland, too, have al
ready granted ample charters, not only
for the construction of joint stock works
and manufacturing town there, but
for any desirable rail and plank road con-
nections with the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, by means of the Metropolitan
road, and with the great Southern routes,
by means Of a connecting cross railroad,
which shall join with the Manassas Gap
and Orange Railroad: one of which, in q
few years, will be link of continuous
line of railroad to Montgomery, Alabama,
and, the other, link in similar line to
Memphis, Tennessee. The region of coun-
try Immediately surrounding these falls,
on both sides of the river, is not only as
susceptible of improvement as any other
in America, but it is now actually i'm
proving as fast as any other. Labor
there, such as required for factory pur-
poses, can be had in ample quantities,
and at reasonable rates; while supplies of
all sorts can be procured with great ia
cility. Under these circumstances, what
can possibly interfere to prevent the rapid
growth of perhaps the most considerable
manufacturing city or town in the United
States, at that point! Virginia is rush
ing ahead in the race of general industrial
improvement, just now, as no other OF
the United States, except Georgia, has
done within the last ten years; the ratio
of the increase of railroads. manufactures
and mechanical labors in Georgia, being
in that time far greater than even in Mas
The parties who have this threat Falls
improvement in hand are men of sub
stance and experience. They not ONLY
realize each and every advantage which
their enterprise possesses, but know how
TO avail themselves of them They are,
by-the-by, hardly more directly interest
ed III their OWN success, than are all who
live within thirty miles of the Fails: as
the influence of their expenditures must
extend SO Ear. Georgetown must first
fee, the benefit of them; and, next, Wash
ingtOn and Alexandria. Within twenty
Years, Chickopee, Mass, has grown from
a single hut to be a city Of twenty thou
sand inhabitants, supported by turning a
comparatively insignificant water power
ito account, under circumstances ten
times more Instantaneous than those
presented at the Great Falls of the po-
tomac. May we not, therefore, reason
ably calculate that, within the next twen-
ty years, the three sister cities of this par.
tcular region will reap the benefit to &C
crue to them from having their manufac
turing suburb Of twenty thousand souls.
also?