Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1894 — WASTED ENERGY. [ARTICLE]

WASTED ENERGY.

—No hi s toryof Indiana wHI ever be complete that does not contain an account of the numerous valuable inHl Hites on tier beautiful streams and rivers -an apparently unlimited source of wealth that Nature had bestowed with lavish hand upon the Canaan fair that in virgin beauty lay before the hardy Ifoosier pioneers, The swift and rippling streams for ages had served as highways for the red man’s light canoe, and all their darkling pools and whirling eddies had but served as spawning grounds for countless bass and luscious salmon that unharmed from year to year disported in the amber depths or leaping showed their silver scales in sunshine bright and sank again beneath the circling waves that followed to the moss grown bank a silent witness to their acrobatic skill. The white man came, and with him change. The peaceful streams were harnessed to the iron beams, their pristine beauty marred and soiled —their charm in many places gone beyond the power of even Nature to restore. The mills grind ori. A generation passes, and in countless cases they are given over to decay and ruin and desolation. Water power is no longer profitable and where Once the burn of Industry was heard the livelong day there now the waters sing a requiem to the blasted hopes of those who fondly saw a fortune In the running stream that ceaselessly passed by, Uo swift has been this trarrSf/'/creation scene that the writer reat least three valuable water yrw«r% that were established within thirty years, served their brief day tA ftUJnU) decay and are *PHkty intveoesof desolation, mute wlfawi**#- to turn** frailty and weakthe all-pz/werful genii, turn token- pl*m, grater mills (U/m Keen ereetoif a*vl the stream* noi <ft,H water dm rn f^anato-darw<vr*ld aspwrt- awpe-wed .<**#* the streams rthndition-, though dHttHfft>«!* conf.i.niev $/y M? if#* s*v indefinlne p$rML: Jut# mart the finiWritf* AUUUi m* frnWv gr I/'." ''ja vwtvw vw sir L: V;

electrical transmission of power, am water powers would become a source of profit. Niagara has been harnessed to dynamos at fabulous expense and Buffalo is to be supplied Iwith power at a nominal charge. Chicago is already contemplating a similar disposition of the enormous Wstxr^wer "that w \ 11 soon be at b<• r disposal at the lower end of the main drainage channel now being construtted. This is estimated at 60, fJO6 horse power, or 1 double that at Minneapolis. All signs indicate a revival of the use of water {sewer, it being no longer necessary to have the mills and factories at the lower end of a mltijrace in dangerous prox Unity to. high water, and owners of this class of property have every reason to hope for an early appreciation In the vahieof their holdings.