[Illustration: RUMFORD BRIDGE, ANDROSCOGGIN RIVER.]
There are about sixty saw-mills on this river and its tributaries, thirty-two of which are at Brunswick and Topsham; about two hundred shingle machines, most of which manufacture for home consumption; ten only, or thereabouts, manufacture for markets abroad, which cut about three hundred thousand to a machine. Average price per _M._, $2.75. Though there are said to be fifty clap-board machines of some sort on the river, yet only "nine can be reckoned as manufacturing for market," "which, owing to the scanty supply of timber, cut only about fifty _M._" to a machine. Average price of clap-boards per _M._, $22.50. There are only nine lath machines, which, as is reported, for want of material, cut only about two hundred and fifty thousand to a machine. Average price per _M._, $1.18.
Throwing the whole, then, into a tabular form, we have presented for our inspection the results of the lumbering operations on the Androscoggin, for the market, as follows:
+---------------------------+----------+------------+--------+ | | | Average | | | | | price | Total. | | | | per M. | | | | +------------+--------+ |No. of Saw-mills | 60. | | | |No. of Shingle Machines | 10. | | | |No. of Clap-board Machines | 9. | | | |No. of Lath Machines | 9. | | | |No. of Long Lumber |5,000,000.| $14.30. | 71,500.| |No. of Shingles |3,000,000.| 2.75. | 8,250.| |No. of Clap-boards | 450,000.| 22.50. | 12,375.| |No. of Laths |2,250,000.| 1.18. | 2,773.| | | | |------- | | | | |$94,898.| +---------------------------+----------+------------+--------+
There is also a small amount of lumber manufactured on the Presumpscot, a small river about fifty miles long, if we include Sebago Pond as a connecting link between Presumpscot Proper and the continuation of the inlet stream, which takes its rise about twenty miles east of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, running southwest, and finally emptying into Casco Bay, a few miles north of Portland.
"There are said to be seventeen falls of water on this river within twenty miles of Portland, each affording a good site for mills, and a sufficient volume of water on each pitch to carry eight hundred looms, together with all other needed machinery for such purposes." "Sebago Lake is a thoroughfare and feeder of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal, and there are between the lake and the sea twenty-six locks of nearly ten feet each, making the fall equal to two hundred and fifty-five feet." The fountains of this river are so springy that "the water never freezes so as to prevent or impede operations," nor are they troubled with droughts; the current is ever-living.