Show A Strange Hoosier Waterpower By A E MARSH ATERPOWER was the foundation ot our Industries But this humble W hum-ble agent of producing energy liJATEltPOWER In favor of the tr more flexible and available steam when tho coal fields were opened Steam was hailed as the giant of civilization but had scarcely established Itself when It too was found too clumsy and the electric current which could be carried many miles over a slender wire while steam could be carried only as many feet through a cumbrous cum-brous pipe became the monarch of our mills In the last decade gasoline which does not need oven the slender wire but can bo carried In the most convenient tin can hRs assumed a largo ehare of the burden of relieving man of physical exertion And now after the others have had their Inning millions are being be-ing spent to develop waterpower again Niagara which for years was useful only as inn 1 an artists model and a spooning ground for Mr and Mrs Newlywed has been harnessed to light the streets of Buffalo The Great Falls of Montana the International Falls on the CanadianMinnesota border tho mountain torrents tor-rents of Switzerland tho Victoria Falls In central cen-tral Africa which 15 years ago were almost regarded as a myth of the explorer oven the humble St Anthony falls at Minneapolis are earning their living Tho turning of water into horsepower has given employment to the wits of our greatest engineers and the most complicated projects have been put through to adapt tho power plants to tho varying condlrtoaa found in the different streams and some of these stand today to-day as our greatest triumphs of engineering But for native Ingenuitydoing something with nothing getting results with neither tools normaterials nothing but puro Yankee Ingenuity the mill which stood for many years on tho brink of a little waterfall In Jefferson county Indlann between time little Presby tcilan college town of Hanover and the Ohio river and only recently has fallen Into disuse dis-use deserves a Carnegie medal The stream which has less than three miles of length from Its source In tho hillside springs to Its mouth In the Ohio was so Insignificant In-significant t that It was never graced with a name But In the old days before some unexplained unex-plained geologic changes occurred It carried a flow of water 20 feet wide and three deep with the speed of a mountain torrent About half a mile from the Ohio It spread out suddenly sud-denly over a flat rock 40 or 50 feet wide and plunged over Its brink a sheer 90 feet The lock was of hardest limestone but underneath was a stratum of schist and rotting slate so that a cave like the Cave ot the Winds at Niagara was hollowed out It made a quite roomy and strange to say dry apartment and was approachable in but one point which was hard to find During the War of 1812 a hermit lived In abut a-but built In this cave and spent his time compounding com-pounding salt petre which he sold to tho powder pow-der makers Ho disappeared as mysteriously as he came and for a year or two the falls were loft to roar nut their own destinies In 1815 nmong tho settlers who rushed west after leaving the army was a shrewd miller William Gordon in whom the hard sense of his Scotch heredity was well mixed with a shrewdness acquired of Yankee environment lie came down the Ohio In a flatboat and stopped at every settlement seeking a location for a mill Ho stopped at Hanover and while rambling through the hills on a hunting expedition expe-dition stumbled on time falls Ho was struck with tho vast waterpower going to waste and when he made inquiries about it he was an swered that the people had neither the means or tho materials to make use of It But Gordon was not that kind of man Ho pitched his tent near the falls and lived with them day and night for several weeks studyIng study-Ing how to overcome the handicap which the lack of tho proper facilities made to developing develop-ing tho power He finally discovered tho entrance en-trance to tho hermits cave and explored tho falls from the rear He finally announced to the farmers of tho settlement that he would have a mill running ready to grind their corn by the tlmo of the fall harvest lie announced at the same time that he would buy all tho cows horns that could be found In the community The Idea of mixing cows horns and g gristmill grist-mill was rather confusing to tho country folk but they were willing to be shown and came from miles around and oven from Kentucky across the river bringing all the horns they could find which they gladly donated when the plan was explained to them Gordon and his two sons had rigged up a stout oaken shaft across the brink of the falls on which was mounted a wooden wheel three feet In diameter with wide flanges Over this ran a pair of log chains Joined at Intervals by cross chains much In tho form of tho chains used on automobile wheels To these cross chains which were about six Inches apart they riveted the cows horns tips downward down-ward The chain carried over a thousand horns and they served as an excellent substitute substi-tute for tho buckets which Gordon had neither the materials nor time tools to make A llttlo mill was set up on the bank anti soon ChainMill Falls wns the busiest spot In the county For 15 years tho cow horns bang their little song as they ground their grist until finally the mill could not take care of tho business and Gordon had to turn engineer again He explored behind the falls and found that a portion of tho rock had scaled away leaving the shelf over which the water flowed a bare 20 feet thick This gave him the Idea and ho proceeded to put It into execution at once Tho stream was dammed to ono sldo exposIng + Ing tho rocky bed half way across above the falls Gordon procured dynamite and sunk K shaft G by 15 feet to tile cave below about ten feet back from the brink of the falls Adam A-dam was built at the brink so the entire flow was diverted through this hole A now two story mill was built and n bigger chain hunt in tho shaft to which huge wooden bucket wero fastened and Gordon found to his joy that ho had more power than he had any use for and actually find to remove every third bucket to lessen tho IIpeetl t + 1 h rlt t oi i jVt |