The Portland daily press., 1895-10-25

now the Dry mas ltAaNo -SSSN-
Felt in yvestbrook-Ihe Water Power
Shows How Good One 1t Is-Gorhan
to Have a Taste.
"There was just rain enough last sum
mer,' said Westbrook mill owner
yesterday, ''to make the raspberry crop
good AS result of the scanty rain
fall, the mills along the Presumpscot fare
just now pretty careful of the water. But
Sebago Lake is big reservoir and the
mill wheels turned by its waters are still
doing business, although not as briskly
as in usual times. The Westbrook people
are not put to SO much inconvenience as
have been the mill men along the Kenne-
bee and Penobscot Only recently, the
broom stick trains in Bangor were run
ming irregularly because of the low water
and in Augusta the street lights failed to
burn, while Gardiner man, the owner
of a saw mill, said that he couldn't get
his logs over the Augusta dam on a
certain Sunday because the river was SO
low that when the wind blew up stream,
as it did on that day, there was not water
enough to float the logs over. 1t speaks
we'll, therefore, for the Westbrook Water
power that the long dryness has caused so
little trouble. To be sure, the electric
light plant is now operated with the
assistance of power from the paper mills
and those great hives of industry are re-
lying to large extent upon the steam
plant, but the mills are all doing business
and most of them with water power.
Mr.. John e. Warren, manager of the
paper mills, keeps an accurate record OF
the state of the river and he told a
PRESS reporter this afternoon that the
river is now as low as it has been since
$780, At the electric light station on the
upper dam, there is board on which is
a scale of feet and inches. When the
river is at it's normal height on the dam,
it registers at the zero mark on this scale.
1t is now over four feet below that so
low that looking from the windows of
the lower station above, you can SEQ the
bottom. just above the station, o ledge
running across the bottom of the stream
Iudh6o q Qctib dli ilolNo be1OfA uAiO
water when it gets as low as it now is.
Should the gates be opened to their full
extent, the water below this natural
barrier would be all sucked away, but by
only partially opening the gates the big
wheels are kept in motion, although not
at full speed. The water here has not
registered so low for ten years On the
little island on which stands the electric
light station in the Dana warp mill.
Here the situation is much the same. The
mill is running all right and will con-
tinue to do SO, but it, too, has to be care
full of the water. The Westbrook Manu-
featuring company has gotten over the
difficulty of reduced power by working
night and day. The other concerns along
the river are in somewhat similar shape.
The region round about is not exactly
water soaked, and the farmers say that
wells are dry which were never known
before to be exhausted. A gentleman who
has resided here for thirty years said to-
day that he had never known the country.
so dry.
In
the amounts in which the water is drawn
from the lake, there is some curiosity as
to the altitude of the mill owners in re-
gard to the extension of the system of
water supply derived from Sebago by the
inclusion of the Gorham works, but the
mill owners, and they are naturally ex-
perts on the question, unite in saying
that that is mere trifie. 1t has been
estimated that the Portland Water COM
pany uses only about two per cent of the
overflow of the lake, and the extension of
the system to include Gorham would
make no appreciable difference. That
will soon be done, for the workmen at
Gorham received orders only a day or two
ago to begin operations looking to the
connection with the present system.
LOW WATER AT AUGUSTA.