RootsWeb has closed a number of maillists. This posting is a test to verify that the WATERPOWER-L list was not one of those closed. Please disregard this posting. Thank you, Craig Crouch, Listowner of WATERPOWER-L 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
[My apologies to members of the microhydro@yahoo maillist who are getting this posting again!] As a subscriber to WATERPOWER-L, you may have an interest on obtaining a copy of the CD I have assembled (with the help of Joe Cole in North Carolina), containing approximately 2000 waterpower-related US Patents downloaded from the US patent Office web site. Sorry, but I cannot claim that the CD includes a complete set of the turbine and waterwheel patents from the inception of US patents to 1920. In particular, we found only about 20 percent of the waterwheel patents prior to the current numbering system (the "X patents", filed between 1791 and 1836). There are likely to be a few dozen other turbine patents for the period 1837-1920 that we missed because they are misfiled on the USPO website. But Joe and I did the best we could. I also threw in some post-1920 patents that were interesting. In addition to the turbine and waterwheel patents, there are a few in the following categories: governors, nozzles, current wheels, powerhouse layout, and tide engines. The CD is written for use on PCs running Windows 98 or later versions. The images are in the TIFF format used on the USPO website. For viewing the images, I recommend using the AlternaTIFF Windows Internet Explorer plug-in that you use to view patent page images on the USPO website. The two to 20 page images for each patent are in a numbered folder using the unique USPO number. That includes reissued (RE) patents, and pre-1837 (X) patents. _____________________________ How To Get One __________________________________ I will mail you the CD by first-class mail in a bubble-wrap mailer if I receive: 1) a pre-addressed mailing label 2) five (5) dollars in US currency, or in a postal money order made out to "Friends of the Folsom Powerhouse" --- Please don't send a personal check or foreign currency. [Note: This is not a money-making venture; just an effort to share good stuff. Any revenues exceeding expenses will go to the Friends of the Folsom Powerhouse, a non-profit organization.] Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 waterpower@cwo.com
I have an interest in the development of turbines up to the early 1930s, and was pleased to find that the surviving US Patent Office files from the early 1800s through the present are now on-line as images. Unfortunately, you can't search the pre-1970s patent grants by patentee name or description, but have to brute-force your way through a classification system that is most graciously described as "imperfectly-applied". In a rather tedious but rewarding effort, I have been downloading these images and have about a thousand old patent grants for various water wheel and hydraulic turbine designs, along with a few of the more novel early tidal power and current wheel ideas folks had. Some of the better-known ones I've found include Leffel, Pelton, and Craik. I am planning on organizing the images on a CD and making it available at cost. If you have an interest this subject, contact me at: waterpower@cwo.com Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 waterpower@cwo.com
The Archiver at RootsWeb now provides search and threaded browse capabilites for the WATERPOWER maillist: WATERPOWER-L Mailing List - Search the Archive http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl and enter the list name: WATERPOWER WATERPOWER-L Mailing List - Threaded Archives http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index and enter the list name: WATERPOWER Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
Maillist members - I came across a now-or-never book purchase that you might consider if you have about $73 available. By late December, the Edison Electric Institute is going to RECYCLE its remaining 35 copies of the two-volume (paper) set: Hay, Duncan. "Hydroelectric Development in the United States, 1880-1940". Washington, D.C.: Edison Electric Institute Task Force on Cultural Resource Management, 1991. Volume 1 is a very comprehensive review of the history of the industry and technology of hydroelectric development in the US. Volume 2 is a bibiliography up to the 1940s. I have attached below the Table of Contents for both volumes. Volume 1 is the BEST general resource I've found on this subject, and I thought you might not want to miss this last chance to get a copy. The two volumes sell as a set: EEI's item number 06-91-06. I made a plea today, and EEI has reduced the sales price 50%, since they are discarding the books. To place an order, call (800) 334-5453 (US/Canada) or (301) 645-4222 (International). The special price of 50% off is $64.00, plus shipping and handling (which is, for example, $9.00 to California). I have been advised by EEI that orders should be in their hands by next Friday (December 21st) to ensure you get a copy. (If the salesperson indicates a price of $128 for the set, tell them that Erica approved the 50% discount.) Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com CONTENTS Volume I PREFACE David R. M. White, The Importance and Significance of Historic Hydroelectric Facilities. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS EEl Acknowledgements vii Author's Acknowledgements ix INTRODUCTION xi CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN HYDROELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT xix Chapter: I HYDROELECTRIC ANTECEDENTS 1 WATERPOWER 1 Waterpower in the West 4 ELECTRICITY 5 Arc Lighting 6 Incandescent Lighting 7 Alternating Current 9 II EARLY HYDROELECTRICITY, 1880-1895 13 DC Systems 13 AC Systems 16 Niagara 20 III INNOVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION, 1895-1915 27 Electrical Transmission 28 Industrial Power 32 Traction 35 Electro-chemical Manufacture 37 IV HYDROELECTRIC TECHNOLOGY 43 HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS 43 Dams 44 Canals, Flumes, & Tunnels 54 Pipelines & Penstocks 57 Surge Tanks 58 PRIME MOVERS 60 Impulse Waterwheels 60 Reaction Turbines 61 Shafts & Gearing 67 Turbine Bearings: The Shift to Vertical Units 71 High Head Reaction Turbines 75 Low Head/High Speed Runners 78 TURBINE SETTINGS 80 Scroll Cases 80 Draft Tubes 83 Backwater Suppressors 85 WATERWHEEL CONTROL 88 Governors 88 ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT 89 POWERHOUSE ARCHITECTURE 91 V STANDARDIZATION 95 CUMULATIVE EXPERIENCE 95 PUBLICATIONS 96 CONSULTING ENGINEERS 98 Stone & Webster 98 H.M. Byllesby 102 C.T. Main 103 HOLDING COMPANIES 105 CONSOLIDATION 107 VI HYDRO WITHIN LARGER SYSTEMS 111 PARALLEL OPERATION 112 LOAD BUILDING/LOAD DWERSITY 113 INTERCONNECTION 114 Superpower 115 PLANNED SYSTEMS 117 AUTOMATIC & REMOTE CONTROL 121 VII HYDRO DURING THE DEPRESSION 123 GOVERNMENT REGULATION 125 FEDERAL WATERPOWER DEVELOPMENT 127 VIII CONCLUSION: PRE-1940 HYDROELECTRIC APPENDIX A: HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS AND THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS. 151 APPENDIX B: David R. M. White, CONTINUITY OF USE: A POTENTIAL APPROACH TO THE MANAGEMENT OF HISTORIC HYDROELECTRIC FACILITIES. 160 APPENDIX C: OPERATING HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS IN THE UNITED STATES, BUILT BEFORE 1940 193 APPENDIX D: RETIRED AMERICAN HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS, BUILT BEFORE 1940. __________________ VOLUME II: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN HYDROELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT, 1880-1940 CONTENTS Histories of Hydroelectricity and Electric Power Hydroelectric Engineering Texts Directories & Atlases Electricity & Hydroelectricity Electric Power Electric Power - Transmission Electrochemical Industry Federal Power Hydroelectric Development Hydroelectric Plant Hydroelectric Plant Construction Hydroelectric Plant Control Hydroelectric Plant Design Hydroelectric Plant Equipment Hydroelectric Plant Operation Hydroelectric Plant Operation - Ice Hydroelectric Plant Reconstruction Hydroelectric Plant Testing Hydroelectric Power Hydroelectric/Diesel Power Hydroelectric/Steam Power Irrigation Municipal Development Power Power Plant Design Power Plant Engineering Pumped Storage Equipment Hydroelectric Structure & Dam Dam,Arch Dam,Concrete Dam,Concrete Buttress (Ambursen) Dam,Design Standards Dam,Earth Dam,Failure Dam,Gravity Arch Dam,Hydraulic Fill Dam,Masonry Dam, Movable 46 Dam, Rock Fill 46 Dam, Spillway 46 Dam, Steel 46 Draft Tube 46 Fall Increaser/Backwater Suppressor 47 Fish & Fishways 48 Flashboard 48 Flume 48 Generator 48 Generator Exciter 50 Governor 50 Intake 52 Penstock 52 Surge Tank 54 Switchboard 55 Trash Rack 55 Turbine 56 Turbine Bearings 63 Turbine, Propeller, Kaplan 63 Waterwheel 65 Waterwheel, Impulse/Pelton 65 United States 67 United States Regions Colorado Riyer Valley 83 Eastern United States 83 Middle Atlantic States 83 Midwest 83 New England 84 Northeastern United States 86 Northwestern United States 86 Pacific Coast 86 Pacific Northwest 88 Southeastern United States 89 Southern United States 91 Tennessee Valley 92 Western United States 93 Canada United States/Canada 99 Alabama 103 Alaska 110 Arizona 111 Arkansas 117 California 119 Colorado 163 Connecticut 167 Georgia 171 Idaho 177 Illinois 181 Indiana 185 Iowa 187 Kansas 191 Kentucky 193 Maine 195 Maryland 201 Massachusetts 205 Michigan 211 Minnesota 219 Missouri 223 Montana 225 Nebraska 231 Nevada 233 New Hampshire 235 New Jersey 239 New Mexico 240 New York 241 Niagara Falls 255 North Carolina 269 Ohio 275 Oklahoma 277 Oregon 279 Pennsylvania 289 Puerto Rico 296 Rhode Island 297 South Carolina 299 South Dakota 305 Tennessee 307 Texas 313 Vermont 317 Virginia 323 Washington 327 West Virginia 343 Wisconsin 345 Wyoming 351
To see contemprary drawings and read articles about turbine development during the period 1870-1890, go to the web site below and search for "turbines": http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.journals/manu.html Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
Hello Group, I'm Joe Cole & live near Charlotte, North Carolina. I've been interested in water power since I was about 6 years old building stone & sand dams on the various creeks where I lived or vacationed. I always wanted to build a waterwheel and drive a bicycle generator to light a bulb. However in those tender years one ids about as mechanically inclined as a tapeworm. I grew up working on cars but joined the Air Force in 1966. I fought communism by working on flight like equipment such as generator, air compressors, gas turbines & hydraulic test equipment. Ever since then I'm been in the maintenance field, mostly on machines. I work today as a graphic arts service tech. I work in printing presses, hydraulic paper cutters, film processors, image setters, scanners etc. I got my first taste real water power when my Dad discovered a dilapidated grist mill & cabin near Cashiers, North Carolina in the mid 1970. Over the next 2 years we restored the mill & started grinding corn as a hobby. We also installed an 8kW generator that we "played with" Today I maintain the Micro-Hydro web site "Uncle Joe's Place http://home.carolina.rr.com/unclejoe/ Over the years I've collected a small cache of books both technical & non technical as well as all the ligature & photos Dad collected over the years restoring his mill. These include al lot of 1970's era "Old Mill Magazine". Most of my larger resources ate listed in the "Sources & Links" section of my web page. I have some other I've collected since then but I'll have to "un-storage" them. (Their lost in boxes in the attic somewhere) Once I get all this stuff down & sorted I'll let everyone know what I have available for this group. Joe Cole http://home.carolina.rr.com/unclejoe/
List members - I have suggested that we all introduce ourselves and summarize our interest in waterpower, so I'll start: I am a water resources engineer in California, and I spent some years in the 1980s working on development of hydropower, especially small hydropower. I worked on studies for projects with a range of heads and flows, and we even built a few of them. Mostly I did reconnaissance and feasibility studies. However, I was involved in design and/or construction of two Francis-turbine head-recovery projects on the San Diego Aqueduct, a medium-head (450 feet) Pelton project on a tributary to the North Fork Feather River, and a high-head (1400 feet) Pelton project in the White Mountains on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. I got to see a fair number of other types of projects. I once met the National Park Service's only hydropower operator when I toured the old Yosemite powerhouse (with its wood-stave penstock and 1900s Francis turbines), which I believe was retired in the mid-1980s. During a visit to the Southern California Edison powerhouse on Lee Vining Creek, I got a free shower by standing near the tailrace when the operator slapped down the deflector and shot a wall of water out the tailrace (I had been camping for some days without a shower, and I needed it!). I have a particular interest in early turbine development world-wide, and in early water and hydropower development (1850-1930) in California. I volunteer as a docent at the old Folsom Powerhouse (which operated 1895-1952). I collect books on waterpower, and am researching the ditch and dam systems that were built to serve hydraulic mining in the Sierra Nevada, and which became much of today's hydropower base in California. How about you? Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
4. We could post information on good deals we know of. For example, SPOOM (Society for the Preservation of Old Mills) offers reprints of books on waterpower and of catalogs from wheel and turbine manufacturers at very reasonable prices. Check it out at: http://www.spoom.org/bookstor.htm Do you know of other good deals for waterpower history buffs? Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
3. We could post what we think are the best resources in our particular area of interest, or of general interest. As an example, for a basic history of windmill, waterwheel and turbine evolution, I really like this book: Smith, Norman Alfred Fisher. Man and water : a history of hydro-technology /, Norman Smith. [New York] : Scribner, c1975. xiv, 239 p., [4] leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. Smith includes a flowchart (family tree) for the evolution of the various wheel and turbine types. How about your favorite sources? Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
2. We could build a list of resources (books, catalogs, images, etc.) that we hold collectively and would be willing to share in some way (look-ups, scanned or copied pages, etc.) We could handle it like "Books We Own" does, at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~bwo/, with email links directly to the book owner; or we could make the ownership anonymous to website visitors, and have requests forwarded through me. I could start by putting up on the website a list of my personal collection (paper and electronic) of waterpower stuff. Some of it is so far out of print that we could probably pass around scanned copies on CD without fear of copyright violation. Any reaction to this idea? Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
In error, this was included in the introduction email: "...A good way to get things going is for you to introduce yourself in a posting, and note your particular background and interests in hydraulic mining history..." It should have said: "...A good way to get things going is for you to introduce yourself in a posting, and note your particular background and interests in waterpower history..." Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
1. We need a "links" page for the website, and making one will give us a feel for what's out there to review and supplement. Several folks have offered to help on that, and have suggested some links. If you have some good links, please post them. If you have time, include a short description of each site and a recommended "links category" for each one. A suggested start for a set of categories might include: technology wheels brest overshot etc. turbines reaction Francis etc. impulse pelton turgo museums and collections (places to visit) wheels turbines operations and operators (including personal histories) mills grist saw etc. hydropower installations research resources text books histories periodicals (contemporary) catalogs websites libraries and special collections Anyway, you get the idea... Thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com
Welcome! You have subscribed (or have been subscribed) to the WATERPOWER maillist hosted by RootsWeb.com. IF ARE SUBSCRIBED BY MISTAKE, REPLY DIRECTLY TO ME AT cecrouch.com AND I WILL REMOVE YOU IMMEDIATELY, WITH MY APOLOGIES. OVERVIEW As maillist "owner", I welcome you to our group. Since RootsWeb.com is focused on genealogy, the maillist description posted there reflects a genealogical element. Whether your interest is technical, historical, or genealogical, I hope that you will find useful information, contacts, and resources by subscribing. The maillist is intended as a means of sharing information between family history and industrial technology researchers on the development of waterpower through the early 20th Century, with a focus on watermills and hydropower in the US from Colonial times. Watermills were an essential element of the frontier and settled areas, as prime movers for sawmills, gristmills, and early textile manufacture. During the 19th Century, turbines evolved from the waterwheel technology and provided early electrical generation. Waterpower history anywhere in the world forms a piece of the puzzle, so the scope of the discussions are intended to be global. However, the maillist is not intended as a forum for CURRENT events and developments in hydropower; there are other discussion groups for that. MECHANICS OF USING THE MAILLIST When you subscribed, you will have gotten a reply from the maillist server that lays out the general mechanics of using the list and its associated archives of postings. But if you have not used an e-mail list at RootsWeb before, here is some additional information to help you: - The purpose of the list is to easily allow a group of people interested in a particular topic to have an email discussion or bulletin board. As people warm up to the topic, we should discover some common interests and get into sharing resources we each have/find on hydraulic mining. - The service I am using is provided free by RootsWeb, a genealogy cooperative on the web that was recently "adopted" by a provider of genealogy software. (The sponsorship arrangement results in some commercial footers, but RootsWeb controls spam very well.) - RootsWeb archives the postings to each maillist it supports, so there is a subject-searchable and thread-organized database of information posted on that subject. [Within a few weeks, I will have some initial content up on my waterpower history web site (www.cwo.com/~ditches/waterpower), and you will be able to go directly to those search functions from the maillist page of that website.] Archiving helps late-comers to a discussion list to easily review the history of postings. When you post, PLEASE put specific topic information on your SUBJECT line. - Anyone who has the address of the maillist (a subscriber or others) can post to it, and their posting is distributed to every email address that is subscribed. We are starting with eight members. If postings start slowly, they should increase as the associated web site is expanded. - The instructions that you got when you subscribed tell you how to post to the maillist. It also should mention some basic restrictions on how to post. The most important ones are: * please use plain text (HTML emails will bounce back to you) * please don't post attachments (they clog the server and subscribers mailboxes); instead, announce what you have to share and send attachments directly to those who respond to you, or send the file to me and I'll put it on the web site for easy downloading. * please don't carry the full text of previous postings in your replies (this clogs the server and the archives) * again, please type in a relevant subject line when you post (versus the default subject line that results if you reply to a maillist posting) so your topic can be found later in the archives. - A good way to get things going is for you to introduce yourself in a posting, and note your particular background and interests in hydraulic mining history. So far, most subscribers have been a bit shy, or too busy to post an introduction (This is called "lurking", and is entirely acceptable on this maillist.) I have great hopes that this waterpower history group will both be fun and produce some lasting value. However, if this maillist becomes a nuisance, I can unsubscribe you, or you can do it yourself at anytime. If you don't want to do an introduction to the list members, please do send your name (and address information, if you wish) directly to me at cecrouch@cwo.com. I keep that confidential. Again, welcome and thank you, Craig Crouch 5307 Hawkhaven Court Rocklin, CA 95765 cecrouch@cwo.com (916) 632-1407