Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/91

Rh turning all the wheels—and they shall be many—of Mimosa Vale."

A breastwork of masonry was thrown across the gorge by merely filling up, as it were, the gaps between the boulders through which the waters had swept for centuries.

The central aperture was raised and built into a race. The lagoons were expanded into one great lake by the addition of six feet of water. A huge wheel was set across the stream at the falls, and eventually the needed power secured.

"There's not more nor enough to turn one mill, and how he's a-goin' to work a dozen, I doesn't know," was the criticism of the villager who acted as head-mason.

Turbine and dynamo were, however, duly set up, and the mystic wires that should convey the electric power run from gum-tree to gum-tree down the busy vale.

There in due course, without steam, smoke, or noise, the factories were at work. Here the saw- and flour-mills, there the butter factory and creamery. Alongside, spaces were set apart for the projected fruitery plant, woollen factory, canning, evaporating, and other works. Far down the valley, between avenues and cottages, ran mystic wire carrying light and power to every house, and propelling the cars or trucks that glided as needed to the wharf on the main lake.

A connection was now in course of construction between the lower lake, "Grassmere," and the Silverbourne river, five miles distant. The wide, high-banked creek presented few engineering difficulties. One lock, where the creek debouched into the river, would throw back along the creek, whose fall was very slight, sufficient water to float the steamers of light draught proposed to be used. To preserve the banks it was