Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1908-06-11

Cameron basin. This means that if you were to
employ $50 men to remove 1000 tons day for
practically 10 years you would only exhaust this
one basin of coal
There are undoubtedly many other tracts OF
coal in the county, but the tracts mentioned
have been thoroughly examined and reported on
b. very able experts and they are opened and al
ready have been worked in a small way. success
fully. This then is anatural resource of certain
production and great value
Now, for a moment / want to suggest to you
something bout another natural resource that
we have in abundance, that S of great value and
has been utterly disregarded l refer to the
streams. They are of great value They should
be impounded and made to give up the power
and wealth that is in them, and shed abroad the
peacef prosperity and contentment that their
ripping waters sing of as they go rushing oyer
their rocky beds on .her way to the sea.
Bennetts Branch heads in Clearfeld county
passes through a corner ofElk; West Creek heads
in Elk county. The Drifwood passes through
a corner ofElk county and with Elk Run and
North Creek heads in Mexican county, the Por
tage has branches extending into both Mexican
ana Potter counties and HINTS Run and the Firs
Fork both head in Potter county If you take
the map you will discover that the water shed
| Cearfeld, Elk, Mexican and Potter counties
These streams are all concentrated at upper Jerry
Run in our county and dam should be CON
structed there to impound all the lood water
and make lake from three to five miles long
and from 10 TO 30 feet deep. Erected at ;het
POINT mentioned the dam would not exceed 1000
or 1900 feet from rock wall to rock wall Of the
mountains on either side, which would furnish
ample material for the work. right at hand.
This dam should be made at once and the pro-
due ton of electrical power secured at the earl
lest day
| Is this idea new and does any one think it is
! impTacticable?
| Let me call your attention to what you all
! know about such matters.
You know the British Government built the
Assouan dam in the Nile and are now making it
| 20 feet higher than originally.
| You all knbw that in 1892 our Congress took
up the idea and appropriated 20 millions for
| building dams and that they begun then and are
! yet building dams that when completed viii cost
| 20 millions. You know that dam building is a
school of engineering science, now greatly de-
veloped. That we have in the Shoshone propo 81
lion the highest dam in the world, $40 feet You
| know that these constructions to conserve the
waters extend from Mexico to Canada through
| that vast expanse of silence land west of the
| Rocky Mountains Arizona, California Nevada
| Oregon, Idaho, and also through Montana, the
! Dakotas Colorado and New Mexico. In short
| from the Rio Grande TO the Yellowstone the
! United States Government is engaged in expend
| ing 40 millions of dollars in constructing dams
| to conserve the waters.
| Now, more than that private enterprise and
capital has been aroused and is no longer un-
mindful of the advantage of such enterprise In
| deed private enterprise and capital have already
| seized upon the very waters of yours in their
course to the ocean and at McCall's Ferry, the
| McCalls Ferry Heat, Power and Light Co.. has
| built great dam across the Susquehanna to
impound them and convert them into electrical
power. Electrics power to serve million peo-
pie in the counties of York and Lancaster and
the City of Baltimore.
You see at once then it is practical to construct
a dam at Upper Jerry Run, in this county, where
the valley is narrow and there is nothing to
hinder and make lake 80 feet deep and five
| miles long and use this wator to produce this
wonderful power called electricity most cheaply
and furnish it to industries SO cheaply as to in
duce them to come to our town in large numbers
Now will not draw the picture of the possible
future prosperity of the beautiful valley we live
In when the manufacturers come here and get
cheap electrical power and when the population
of this great Commonwealth is double what il Is
now, as it will be within 80 years. The great
flood tide of population must set in here it this
natural resource is seized upou as it should be at
once
1t is up to this energetic and able Board
OF Trade to get next to capital that will drill for
oil and mine for coal and perhaps best of al
size upon the opportunity to produce that magica
power electricity, cheaply. Through enterprise,
energy and capital wisely employed upon these
natural resources our comfy will surely be popu
lated by an industrious, prosperous and content
ed people, many times greater in number than
| our present population.