In consequence of the success attending the improvement of the water-power at Lowell, several other extensive water-powers in New England have been brought into use in a similar manner. Some of these undertakings have been quite successful, whilst with others, as yet only partially developed, the success has not been so decided.
The great abundance of water-power in this country has had a strong tendency to encourage its extravagant use; the machines used in the manufactories are usually great consumers of power; the ability of a machine to turn off the greatest quantity of work with the least manual labor, and in the least time, has been the point mainly considered; and whether it required a greater or less amount of power, has been a secondary consideration.
The engineering operations connected with the water-power at Lowell, have frequently demanded more definite information on certain points in hydraulics, than was to be found in any of the publications relating to that science; and hence has arisen the necessity, from time to time, of making special experiments to supply the required information. Whenever such emergencies have arisen, the officers who have the general care of the interests of the several corporations, with a liberality founded on enlarged views of the true interests of the bodies they represent, have always been willing to defray such expenses as were necessary, in order that the experiments might be made in a satisfactory manner.
The experiments recorded in the following pages, are a selection from those made by the author, in the discharge of his duty, as the Engineer of the Corporations at Lowell. They may be divided into two classes, namely. First, those on hydraulic motors, and, second, those on the flow of water over weirs, and in short rectangular canals. Combined with the description of the experiments, there are also given some other investigations, which may appear somewhat out of place, but which, from their utility or novelty, will be found interesting to many persons who have cultivated the science of hydraulics.
The unit of length adopted in this work, is the English foot according to a brass standard measure made by Cary of London, now in the possession of the Lowell Machine Shop.
