To glance at the map and institute a comparison between the Penobscot and Androscoggin, the former sixty miles longer, with its hundreds of lakes, numerous branches and tributaries, ramifying nearly one third the area of the entire state, in the regions of ice and snow, mountains and wildernesses, then survey the Androscoggin, with comparatively few tributaries or lakes, and the thing seems incredible that the latter annually pours into the Atlantic more water than the former; yet actual surveys, made by the late Colonel Baldwin, J. A. Beard, Esq., and others, have demonstrated this result with mathematical certainty. In time of freshets, in the spring and fall, doubtless the Penobscot disgorges more water; but during the summer and winter months the waters of the Androscoggin exceed in quantity. The country through which this river flows, "from Brunswick," a few miles from its junction with the Kennebeck, "to Dixfield, sixty miles distant, is not remarkable in its features; but from the latter place to Umbagog Lake," the grand reservoir of the Androscoggin, "and from Phillips, in Franklin county, westward, up the Megalloway River," the extreme north tributary of the Androscoggin, "some thirty or forty miles, the country is said to be wonderful for its mountains." Respecting the water power and privileges on this river, Colonel A. J. Stone, to whom I am chiefly under obligations for the facts involved in this part of my work, says, "I doubt whether there is a state in the Union that can show so many as we can on the Androscoggin and its tributaries." [Illustration: RUMFORD FALLS, ANDROSCOGGIN RIVER.] "There are now three or four water-falls at Rumford, on this river, while anciently there must have been others of greater magnitude, for deep holes are seen worn high up on the rocky banks, where the waters never ran in modern times. Now the whole descent is divided into two principal and two minor falls, the first two being from six to ten feet, the middle seventy feet perpendicular, and the fourth twenty feet, while the whole pitch is estimated at one hundred and eighty feet. It is the middle fall, however, that will attract the attention of the traveler, for there the torrent of water pouring down with the noise of thunder, and dashing itself into foam as it chafes the rocky walls, produces an effect full of grandeur."--_Geological Reports._