Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/27

 SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY

19

Glorious heritage May Divinity only can fathom the future. the final reunion of the pioneers in the realms of a joyous eter!

his richest reward. nity be, after all the achievements, will now take a final view of the Snake river as

We

we

of

a later generation have placed it in history. After the camp fires of the emigrant had ceased to burn along the line of the

Oregon

Trail,

and

its

unnumbered graves had been

leveled

by the winds of time, a new and a startling element entered into the world's industrial affairs. Though we know not nor from whence it comes, nor whither it goes, it destined to revolutionize the efforts is, nevertheless, an element and revise the rewards of man. We call it hydro-electric

what

it is,

power.

By the use of this mysterious gift of nature we no longer use the water power to turn the shaft of the mill situated on the bank of the stream, but to operate the generator which, with the use of transmission lines, conveys the power to the remotest fields of civilization. Its marvelous energy has, to a large extent, invaded the industrial world, nor is it any less a potent factor in the laboratories of science than in the boundless fields of domestic economy. In transportation it is destined to supplant the steam locomotives in the near future, for already

the monster electric locomotives, weighing eighty-four tons each, speeds through the

two hundred and

Rocky Mountains hundred ton transcontinental trains with the utmost ease. What a marvelous evolution; what a gift from the benevolent hand of God what a boon to the toiling masses As a power river the Snake ranks with the greatest in the world. Its vast volume of water has a total fall, from source to mouth, of more than one mile, and, in the meantime, it develops a minimum of 1,400,000, and a maximum of 2,900,000 H.P. The latest information available would indicate the development at the present time to be about 120,000 H.P. I pay for power $28.00 per H. P. per season of five months, but putting it down to $10.00 per annum the Snake river would appear to possess an annual earning capacity equal to $14,000,000, and a maximum of $29,000,000. Thus it seems that "the

hauling their eight



!