Watermill

“ All it needs is a little walling up on one side, but that has to be very strong and solid; for sometimes we have more than two feet of water in the reservoir, and then it will easily overflow.
After we have it all built, comes the great moment of letting the waterfall loose. Karsten and I each have a stout stake,—quick as lightning we punch a hole through the dam, and down rushes the waterfall over the precipice. The yellowish marsh water which we have led to the pool from way back on the hilltop is one mass of white foam. It thunders and crashes and spatters just like a real waterfall. ”

“ A river is seldom flumed for less than three hundred yards, and sometimes for a mile; and the lumber and labor required to make so long a flume, and one large enough to hold all the water of a river, are very expensive. The dam will always leak, and water will run into the bed from the adjacent hills and mountains, and this water must be lifted out by pumps driven by wheels placed in the flume. The river-beds are full of large rocks, weighing from one to ten tons, and these must be moved by machinery, to allow the dirt to be taken out. ”

“ Flossie and Freddie were too small to think much about the missing Christmas trees, which their father had come to camp to see about. All they were anxious for was to have some fun, and going to the sawmill was part of this.
The sawmill was farther down on Pine Brook, where that stream widened out and was dammed up to make a waterfall. Part of the waterfall went through a flume, or sort of wooden canal, and the water, falling down a shaft, or wooden tunnel standing on end, turned a turbine wheel.
A turbine wheel is quite different from the ordinary mill wheel you may have seen. ”

“ This seems to have been the origin of floating-mills, no record of them appearing previously. By these means the use of water-mills became very much extended; for floating-mills can be constructed almost upon any stream, without forming an artificial fall; they may be stationed at the most convenient places, and they rise and fall of themselves with the water.—They are, however, attended with these inconveniences: they require to be strongly secured; they often block up the stream too much, and move slowly; and they often stop when the water is too high, or when it is frozen. ”

“ On the shore they met with no success; so they dug pits at intervals along a line stretching from the coffer dam to the money-hole. The soil in all these places consisted of that same tenacious blue clay which I have already mentioned. I don’t know how many of these were dug, but there were several, at any rate. Now, whenever they attempted to strike the drain, the water was invariably too much for them, and rushed in, giving them nothing to do but to fly as fast as they could. In other places they were afraid to venture too near the drain. ”

“ The pond was needed as a reservoir of power, for the mill was far up that valley, and the stream at this height was small. Lower down, where the rivulet became a river, there were mills in plenty that had no pond, and needed nothing more than a narrow channel cut to feed their small wheels. But Elmsdell Mill, to make the most of what water it had, possessed a wheel of great diameter, that the leverage of its spokes might make the most of the liquid force at its command. ”

“ The mill pond was fed by several streamlets which came down from the north, but its work having been completed, the dam has been allowed to wash away; and, there being some question as to ownership, we learn that this once beautiful and interesting spot is now grown up with rushes. It seems as if the water power here might, in this day of improved machinery, be made again to serve a useful purpose. ”

“ You can have considerable patience with a windmill if you only depend upon it for pumping water, provided you have a tank that will hold a week’s supply to be drawn during a dry, hot time when every animal on the farm demands a double allowance of water. That is the time when a farmer hates to attach himself to the pump handle for the purpose of working up a hickory breeze. That also is the time when the wind neglects a fellow. ”

“ The next morning he sat a long time in the genial sunlight watching carpenters finish a scaffolding beside the pool that had once floated logs to a sawmill. The scaffolding was a stout affair supporting an immense tank that would, evidently for some occult reason important to screen art, hold a great deal of water. The sawmill was gone; at one end of the pool rode a small sail-boat with one mast, its canvas flapping idly in a gentle breeze. Its deck was littered with rigging upon which two men worked. They seemed to be getting things shipshape for a cruise. ”

“ Gradually, however, the industrious dam-builders had dug away these shallows, using the material––grass, roots, clay, and stones––for the broadening and solidifying of the dam. The tough fibred masses of grass-roots, full of clay and almost indestructible, were just such material as they loved to work with, the ancient difficulty of making bricks without straw being well known to them. Over a large portion of the pond the bottom was now clean sand and mud, offering no obstacle to the transportation of cuttings to the houses or the dam. ”

“ The water is forced through a half-inch iron pipe to a large tank in the attic of the house situated on the hill above. The tank, which holds about five hundred gallons, supplies the house with pure, cold water for all purposes. As the water is always flowing into the tank it is provided with an inch and a half overflow pipe, which carries the surplus water back into the glen. Thus, through a series of pipes and a ram, the water is conveyed from the reservoir throughout the house. By building a small dam farther down, we made a fair-sized pond on which to domesticate some wild fowl. ”

“ A well point can be driven into the ground until water is reached and then the water can be brought to the surface by means of a pump operated by hand or by power. The water can be forced to a tank that is open and elevated, or forced into a tank that is closed and put under pressure. From either tank the water will flow to any desired outlets. A windmill can be employed to furnish power to operate the pump. Water supply that is received directly from underground is by far the best to use. ”

“ Nothing less than a twelve-foot mill ought to be erected, and, to be efficient, the wind must blow at the rate of twelve to sixteen miles an hour.
Fig. 43.—Windmill and water tank.
A windmill of the best design is made entirely of steel with small angle irons for posts for the tower, and with [Pg 171] the mill itself made of galvanized iron. It requires a good foundation and must be well anchored to the masonry piers by strong bolts set well down into the masonry. ”

“ Now that the dam was beginning to flow the meadows, they would make the stream do their carrying just as it did cargoes for man.
The brush and saplings were stuck vertically in front of the pine barricade, and the holes between were plastered up with mud and sods, until the structure was fairly tight. The mud they carried in their fore paws hugged up under the chin, or on the broad tail which made a fine trowel with which to smooth it off. ”

“ Everything being in readiness, a sufficient force of laborers to finish the dam in six hours should commence the work a little before dead low-water, and, (with the aid of wheelbarrows, if necessary,) throw the earth in rapidly behind the row of stakes and fascines, giving the dam sufficient width to resist the pressure of the water from without, and keeping the work always in advance of the rising of the tide, so that, during the whole operation, none of the filling shall be washed away by water flowing over its top. ”

“ This extra flow disturbed both the colour and the temperature of the clear amber water of the pond. It lifted heavily against the ice, pressed up the tunnels to the very edge of the dry chamber of the lodge, and thrust ponderously at the outlets of the dam. Understanding the peril, the wise little dam-builders sallied forth in a flurry, and with [Pg 249] skilful tooth and claw lost no time in enlarging the outlets. They were much too intelligent to let the flood escape by a single outlet, lest the concentrated flow should become too heavy for them to control it. ”

“ Then they all looked around again, their eyes naturally roving in the quarter where, near the farther end of the dam, the old mill stood.
Its day was long since past. The great water wheel at the end of the sluice had partly fallen to pieces with the passage of time and the ravages of neglect. What was left seemed to be almost entirely covered with green moss, among which the clear little fingers of water trickled. ”

“ After every shower, the stream comes down red and turbid with the finer and more argillaceous portions of the deposit; minute accumulations of sand are swept to the gorge of the ravine, or cast down in ripple-marked patches in its deeper pools; beds of pebbles and gravel are heaped up in every inflection of its banks; and boulders are laid bare along its sides. Now, a separation, by a sort of washing process of an analogous character, must have taken place in the materials of the more exposed portions of the boulder-clay, during the gradual emergence of the land ”

“ For only a fish can exist in a hose or pipe completely filled with water, and that is what the tunnel would become if the water rose to the roof—merely a great, underground rocky pipe for the conveying of the liquid from Pocut River.
So you can easily imagine with what anxiety Bud, Nort and Dick watched the rising water. Every now and again one of them would lean over the ledge, swinging the lantern to and fro, so its gleams would be reflected in the hurrying, foaming stream, and indicate how fast it was rising. ”

“ Then boulders that have fallen into the channels, and which the ordinary summer and winter currents were unable to move, are suddenly swept forward as by a mighty besom, hurled over the falls into these pools, and piled up in a new dam together with part of the old one, while some of the smaller boulders are carried further down stream and variously lodged according to size and shape, all seeking rest where the force of the current is less than the resistance they are able to offer. ”

“ A windmill pumps the water into a high tank, which gives it the pressure needed for sprinkling. Hydrants are placed at the house, at the barn, in the garden, in the orchard, and at other points. With plenty of hose the fire protection is admirable. The farmer's wife is as well off as her city cousin in the matter of water conveniences. ”

“ To a large extent, the reservoir of the Cross was artificial. It had been constructed by throwing a deep stone and concrete dam across a narrow cañon through which there percolated, in summer, a small stream. Its cubic capacity was such, however, that when this reservoir was filled by spring freshets it contained water enough to run the full season round if sparingly used; and it was on this alone that the mill depended for its power, and the mine for its lights and train service, from hoist to breakers. ”

“ When he wishes to “drive” his logs to the mouth of the stream, he first accumulates a head of water behind his dams, and then, by lifting the gates, creates an artificial freshet sufficient to float his timber to the pool formed by the next dam below. The device is common enough; but it is expensive. People do not build dams except in the certainty of some years of logging, and quite extensive logging at that. ”

“ The shore is bold, and, with the bed of the [121] river, is of gravel and rock formation, washed clean by an active current at all seasons of the year. Pumping works may be located at this point without any objectionable and expensive inlet-pipe; while the adjacent hills afford an excellent site for a storage reservoir, 307 feet above extreme low water, and 75 feet above the Garden of Eden Reservoir. On the lower level there is a fine plateau for locating, not only the pumping house, but subsiding reservoirs and filtering basins. ”

“ When these embankments are very extensive, there is a constant filtration of the water through them; drains are therefore constructed to collect it into certain spots, and mills erected to pump it over the banks. These are usually small windmills, working a large wooden screw in a cylindrical barrel, causing the water to rise up the cylinder into a trough, from which it is poured over the embankment; these mills require little or no attention, and work at all times when the wind blows. ”

“ Windmills of the modern type, consisting of a wheel composed of a number of short sails fixed to a steel framework upon a braced steel tower, have been used for many years for driving machinery on farms, and less frequently for pumping water for domestic use. In a very few cases it has been utilised for pumping sewage, but there is no reason why, under proper conditions, it should not be employed to a greater extent. ”

“ By reason of the constantly changing temperatures and the frequent filling and emptying of the reservoir, expansion and contraction, which are always at work tending to produce relative movements wherever one portion of a structure is weaker than another, must have assisted the water-pressure in the extension of the horizontal cracks, which, growing slowly, during the fifteen years, provided at last the area required to enable the intrusive water to overbalance the little remaining stability of the dam. ”