RESULTS IN BRIEF.

WATER POWER GAINED ON HUDSON RIVER.

Stating the results of general public interest thus far obtained, in briefest possible terms:

We find it very probable that on the Sacandaga there can be constructed a reservoir which will have at high water an area of about 40 square miles, or nearly the area of Lake George.

This will be so large that the surplus flood waters of years of heavy rainfall can be carried over to reinforce the flow of the river in years of small rainfall.

The extreme depth of water at the dam site will be about 60 feet, and will be about 30 feet when the lake is drawn as low as the sluices will permit.

In a year of ordinary rainfall the lake would be lowered not more than 8 or 10 feet, and in the year of smallest rainfall, such as is likely to come once in, say 20 years, it would never be drawn more than 30 feet. The area of the lake when thus drawn to the lowest level possible would be about 30 square miles.

This reservoir, although inside the line of the Forest Preserve lands, would be entirely outside the limits of the Adirondack Park, and I believe it feasible to so prepare its margins that the hills around it will become attractive sites for summer cottages, thus leaving the immediate region, after a few years, fully as populous and more prosperous than to-day, notwithstanding the number of houses that would have to be either submerged or removed.

This Sacandaga reservoir, as soon as built, will add most remarkably to the present water resources of the Hudson river by the release of its stored waters for use all the way from Corinth to Troy; and therefore the expense of construction of the proposed Sacandaga power-house, with its expensive tunnel, tailrace and electrical transmission lines, can be delayed as many years after the reservoir is built as thought desirable.

Until the proposed Sacandaga power-house is built, the sluice gates on this Sacandaga reservoir would ordinarily be nearly or

wholly closed during from four to six months of the year, and opened only during those six months of the year in which the flow of the Hudson is low.

I compute that under these circumstances the waters of this reservoir alone, with the opening of the gates varied from day to day as the varying flow of the main river may call for, would reinforce the flow of the main river to such an extent that the discharge at Mechanicville need never be less than 6,500 cubic feet per second where it now sometimes falls as low as 1,500.

The greatest regulated flow at Mechanicville contemplated in Mr. Rafter's studies of 1895, as a result of constructing the whole chain of proposed Adirondack reservoirs, was 4,500 cubic feet per second, but I find good reasons for believing, as just stated, that from this one reservoir of the size now proposed, a much better result can be obtained than heretofore hoped for from the storage control of all the ponds and lakes on the upper Hudson, including the Schroon.

This Sacandaga reservoir would more than double the present water power capacity of each mill site on the river during the two months of drought of the average year and would greatly increase the value of the undeveloped sites below Spier's Falls, which are said to have a fall of about 70 feet.

The average 24-hour 7-day discharge from this Sacandaga reservoir in the dryest month of a year of ordinary rainfall, as thus used for storage only, would be about 4,450 cubic feet per second, which would add nearly 125,000 available horse power in the aggregate, at the thirteen developed water-power sites from Corinth to Troy, inclusive, and about 20,000 horse power additional at the undeveloped sites between Spier's Falls and Glens Falls, over and above that which the river now furnishes in a similar dry month. Taking the six dryest months of the ordinary year, the aggregate in average amount of available power added at the several sites during the dry half of the year would be about 80,000 horse power of 24-hour 7-day power.

These are enormous quantities. The total of new power thus added at sites on the Hudson is larger than the aggregate water powers of Holyoke, Lowell and Lawrence.

Two DIFFERENT METHODS OR STAGES OF USE.

In the early years, this Sacandaga reservoir can be used solely for storage for the benefit of the present water powers on the main river. In later years, its first and chief use would be for supplying a new power-house on the outlet from this great artificial lake.

The greatest good to the development of the State ultimately will come not from the use of this reservoir solely for storage in the interests of the mills on the main river, and care should be taken that no prescriptive or contract rights are gained, adverse to ultimately taking all the reservoir flow at substantially a uniform rate through the power-house proposed on the Sacandaga. Other reservoir sites can be then developed on other tributaries of the Hudson, for the sole benefit of the sites below Hadley.

Whenever it becomes expedient to construct the proposed power-house near Hadley, a tunnel about two miles in length will have to be built under the mountain, and the down-stream mile of the Sacandaga (which is found by our borings to contain no ledge), will need to be excavated or dredged for a deep tailrace.

The Hadley power-house can then use all of this water under a head and fall of nearly 200 feet, and with turbines of ordinary efficiency this would yield constantly about 25,000 to 30,000 horse power on the turbine shaft if drawn at a uniform rate for 24 hours per day and 7 days in the week throughout the year, but as more profitably used, and concentrating a large part of the use into the ordinary working hours of the week, with a 40 per cent. load factor, loads aggregating upward of 60,000 horse power, as measured at the consumers' end, allowing 85 per cent. efficiency for electrical conversion and transmission, could be supplied throughout a dry year, and transmitted in part for municipal purposes to Albany, Troy, Cohoes, Saratoga, or any of the communities within a radius of upward of 50 miles.

My own views are that it should be the policy of the State to develop new uses or to supply solely public needs at cost, rather than to enter into competition with established power plants by offering their manufacturing customers lower rates. Temporarily with a portion of this power sold to them at wholesale the building of the plant proposed would greatly benefit those established power plants now suffering a shortage.

Near to the power-house, a new industrial community could be founded and supplied with a part of this great power, for the total of 25,000, or 30,000 horse power of 24-hour power, or 60,000 horse power in ordinary working hours, just mentioned as available at this one power-house, is greater than the aggregate water power of Lowell and Holyoke combined.

The greatest utility to the State would be obtained under a system designed to encourage local development of new industrial communities, rather than by leasing this power to private corporations for the purpose of replacing, because of lower cost, power now obtained by the burning of coal.

For twenty years or more of the immediate future, pending the gradual encouragement and development of industries of the kind. in which the maximum population per thousand horse power is supported, it would be wise for the State to seek markets for the surplus portion of this power where it would simply cheapen the cost of manufacturing or street railway service or electric lighting by replacing power now derived from burning coal.

Temporarily perhaps leases might also be made for electrolytic or other use consuming large amounts of power rather than to let the water run to waste, but the fixed and plainly expressed policy should be to set a time limit to such leases and try to ultimately have this power put to such use as will employ in new enterprises as near to this power-house as practicable large numbers of highly skilled operatives.

BENEFITS OF SACANDAGA POWER PROJECT TO EXISTING WATER POWERS ON THE HUDSON.

Athough the uniform discharge through the Sacandaga powerhouse will reinforce the existing power sites on the Hudson between Corinth and Troy and enlarge their capacity to a less extent than the intermittent discharge during the first period mentioned, when the Sacandaga sluices are closed tight for several months in the year and its storage discharged wholly in months of drought, the uniform discharge from the proposed power-house nevertheless will be, as already stated, of great benefit in adding to the power at all of the sites from Corinth to Troy inclusive.

For example, in September, 1907, the Sacandaga river in its

natural state was delivering only about 130 cubic feet per second into the Hudson, whereas with the proposed reservoir built and its water used exclusively through the proposed power-house about one mile west of Hadley, the corresponding discharge from the Sacandaga would be 1,700 cubic feet per second. This additional 1,570 cubic feet per second of 24-hour flow, for example, on the 75-ft. drop at Spier's Falls, would add 10,000 horse power of 24-hour 7-day power.

An estimate made in much detail from the records of Hudson flow during the past 20 years, shows that the aggregate increase in power, by the uniform draft through the Sacandaga powerhouse all the way from Corinth to Troy, would average nearly 22,000 net horse power increase of 24-hour 7-day power on the turbine shaft for the six dry months in the year.

The facilities for building an enormously thick and high earth dam here by the hydraulic sluicing method practiced in the West apparently give means for abundant safety within limits of reasonable cost.

Should it be deemed after further investigation that so high a dam as the one now being studied which would impound 56 ft. in depth of water, is not feasible, a lower dam can be adopted and a good power and storage proposition still be obtained. And while I would not yet undertake to pronounce finally on feasibility or cost, I do heartily recommend further investigation.

I have been unable to find anywhere' within the State of New York (unless it be at Niagara), another site which promises to be so well adapted to development under State ownership and control.

Private interests have for four or five years past been obtaining property and rights with a view toward the development of this Sacandaga power under much less comprehensive plans than those which I have worked out and under conditions which will bring far less new power and far less benefit to the State.

ADVANTAGES GIVEN BY STATE OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL. The State, obtaining its money by bond issues at less than twothirds the annual charge that a private company has to meet when he ordinary discount and bonus are recokned in, can afford to