Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-04-07
BIG SOURCE OF POWER.
$. n. Stewart Writes the Wasted Az
vantages of the Riv..;.

vantages of the Riv..t.
$. n. Stewart the ferry owner. well
known in Rock Island, having been
here last summer attempting to in
troduce plan of ferry launches be-
tween Rock Island and Davenport, has
written the following communication
to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
'.In your issue of today notice an
editorial note concerning the utiliZa-
ton of the power of the Mississippi
river in St. Louis.
River motors or '.current motors"
are already in successful use in
Europe. as you are no doubt aware,
but their machines are extremely
rude and imperfect and the users
actually build their mills upon boats
the mills operated by the river
motors-instead of placing them on
shore and using electrical transmits
sion But the motive power being
free, they successfully endure the
tremendous disadvantage of building
enormous boats to sustain their mills,
and carry their material and pro-
ducts to and from these boats by
hand. Electrical transmission has
opened the way to the utilization of
the water power of rivers.
1t is the common impression that
water power cannot be obtained with
out building a dam, and few cities
being worth dam, as we might say
without intending any profanity,
very lite water power mas up TO this
time been used, for dams ..come
high"
Consider the feeble and variable
force of the wind. yet thousands of
windmills are in use in every coun-
try. In Holland they have performed
Herculean tasks. driving back the
ocean and making his former bed to
blossom like the rose. Yet Il river
motor placed in the powerful current
of your river here would produce
about eight times the power of an
average windmill of the same cost.
Think of the weight and pressure
of water as compared with wind. You
can knock a man down. with Il buck
etful of water, but who was ever hurt
by a bucketful of wind? Your local
politicians daily hurl barrels of it at
each other without effect.
AJoke.
The bed of a river is WATERFALL
continuous fall. .'TWat-er fall is
there nv countrymen.'
would not joke on such serious
subject as the utilization of the
mighty power of the moving stream
liquid avalanche always sliding
past YOUR door and calling to Won to
harness it-but it is scarcely worth
while to treat it seriously. because
your leading engineers to whom YOUR
people would look for advice. having
never studied it. would naturally
scott it. Your young receptive engi
neers are without influence: your old
ones have passed the period of i'm
provement, and are no longer fleXi-
BILE.
But the time will come. and the
utilization OF st. Louis water power
your river front of II miles-will
produce results which if stated now
would seem fanciful. The Mississippi
pi below its junction with the Miss
ouri is deep and rapid. and gives st.
Louis an enormous natural advan-
tage over every city in the country
except Memphis. At New Orleans
the ebb and flow of the tide inter-
feres.
Water power will be utilized-per-
haps tOmorrow-perhaps in 100
years-and its utilization will move
manufacturing centers to the banks
of rapid rivers. St. Louis and Mem
phis will stretch themselves in the
sun and stretch out 80 miles along
the shore to get power without smoke,
dust and ashes.
Should any citizen, interested in
the Growth of St. Louis. doubt the
value and power of the current of
your mighty river and wish a dem
onstration let him place $50 in your
hands. Within 80 days we will give
him a machine, which under a dyna-
mometer applied by any engineers
YOU NAV select will produce more
power than any steam engine of the
same cost and run "a hours n day
without fuel or attendance, or he
need not pay for it,
Should the reader say, This means
much; why don't you at once intro
duce it?" The answer is, that / am
mot much of a hand" at introducing,
having been born bashful.
A thousand dollars would build
river motor that would generate suf-
inmate the Eads bridge. What an
advertisement it would be for st.
Louis all over the country. 1t would
double the attendance at your fall
festivities.
Streams small enough to be dam
med are almost dry large part of
the wear, but past the gates of St.
Louis roll the floods of the mountain