Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-09-22

blue bays that clutch at
Names spruce forested shore.
These mills have been simple affairs,
built on a small scale and not very
efficient. The ebb and flow OF the
tides turned the wheels to provide
power for all sorts of village and farm
labor such as grinding corn and saw
ing lumber. But the idea of "har-
Messing the moon" in big way always
has appealed to the Yankee inventive
genius. More than century ago a
great philosopher. spending a few
Summer weeks at the fishing town of
Lubec where the 30-foot Bay OF
Fundy tides roll in, was fascinated
watching one of these mills in opera
ton. 1t was then that Ralph Waldo
Emerson, according to local tradition,
coined the phrase, Hitch your wagon
to a star" 1t was not intended to
convey the meaning attached to it in
baccalaureate sermons, that is to set
a high goal in lite and struggle to
attain it. Emerson spoke much more
to the point-that the way to succeed
Was " ldhC dNN dAlIdSC VI Liz 4OINCS
of nature. Quite literally these tide
mills we're hitched to a star-the moon
with harnesses of water.
Never Paid Dividends.
But the village inventors who put
tered over the idea in their woodShed
workshops found that the star" was
a wild, lazy and stubborn mule that
resented driving. The idea never paid
dividends. AS many dreams as boats
were wrecked by the tides. But at last,
with $36.000,000 and the Engineer
Corps of the Army, Uncle Sam has set
about actually to hitch Names wagon
to star through the medium of the
great Cobscook Bay tidal power prof.
ect centering about the old town of
Eastport at the extreme northeastern
tip of the United States The name
"Passamaquoddy" applied to this en-
terprise is. for the time being at least,
misnomer. There are twin bays
Cobscook and Passamaquoddy. The
latter lies almost entirely within the
boundaries of the Province of New
Brunswick, and since Canada to date
has failed to authorize an interna-
tional project is out of the picture.
1t may come into it again later At
present this is an all-American under
taking.
The idea which forms the basis for
the present project is credited to Col.
Dexter P. Cooper, noted engineer. He
surveyed the scene from Campobello
Island in New Brunswick, the Summer
home of President Roosevelt. Here,
If anywhere on the earth, was the
ideal spot for putting the tides to
work on big scale. There were two
deep, landlocked bays, with 30-foot
tides. Across the mouth of each Of
them lay succession of islands. All
that was necessary to dam them off
was to fill in the spaces between these
islands. Nature had done two-thirdS
of the work already.
Feasible for Engineers.
With the mouths of Cobscook and
Passamaquoddy Bays blocked off there
would be two great inclosed basins.
The incoming tide could be ad-
mitted into one and shut out of the
other. By the time it had ebbed from
the high-water basin the loW-water
basin would be filled Thus there
would be a continuously fluctuating
balance of ocean water as the source
of power. 1t was vision that gripped
the Imagination but-so the Army
engineers who now are in charge of
the work say-there never was any
question from an engineering stand
point of its feasibility. The dams
could be built, the tides would consti-
tute an ineXhauStible and enormous
source of power, and the cost, con-
sidering the size of the project, would
not be prohibitive.
Col. Cooper was talking about the
project IL years ago. First he tried
to interest private capital. He OBJ
tanned funds for making investiga-
tional studies, but none of the power
companies were willing to finance the
actual building. There were two pri-
mary difficulties. First, it was asked,
would the power return justify the
enormous capital outlay? Second,
what would be the market for the
power in that non-industrial, rather
thlnly populated region of farmers,
trappers and fishermen? The United
States Government always was con-
cerned with these difficulties when
efforts were made to finance it as a
Federal project.
Reports of Federal engineers were
agreed that the project was feasible
enough, but estimates of the costs
and the probable returns were too I'M
certain to recommend the actual con-
struction. An intern. tional commits
sion studied the project. Canada re-
1used to permit the blocking of of
PaSSamaquoddy Bay on various
grounds-one of the chief of which
was that it was feared it would ruin
the sardine fisheries, perhaps the most
important source of livelihood for
that part of New Brunswick.
Begun by President.
Very nebulous was the probable fate
OF "Quoddy" until this Summer when
President Observation-Disclosures with
those bays and inlets as a neighbor-
by executive order set aside a pre-
liminary S1o,oOo,oo0 to get it started
as an emergency relief measure and
put it under the Jurisdiction of the
Engineer Corps. Otherwise 1t is adj
mittedly questionable whether this
super tide mill would have gotten
under way for many years to come,
because it was a debatable business
investment. The cost of the power
would, taking into consideration the
necessary return on the costs, not be