The Two Towers: Main

The future in Hydraulic Engineering in connection with Hydro-electric development looks bright. We can now measure water by all of the well-recognized methods . . . the latest having been developed at our own laboratories.
      --Francis W. Roys, 1923

work and for simple tests on water wheels, pumps, and meters. The opening of the meter station coincided with the development of many natural resources in the western part of the country. Worcester Tech thus became the possessor of the only adequate facilities in the country for testing the great rivers of the West as well as of the East. Professor Allen made some of the first experimental models in the country; and the laboratory became cluttered with miniatures of such rivers as the Connecticut, Ware, Penobscot, Androscoggin, Hudson in the East, the St. Lawrence, Niagara, and St. Maurice in Canada, and the Columbia, Susquehanna, Osage, Missouri in the West.

Before anyone knew exactly what was happening, the laboratory was doing extensive commercial work for governments, municipalities, power and ship and manufacturing companies. During the War the site was also used for friction tests on projectiles. The old pulley once used to drive the main shaft in the Washburn Shops, now installed at the laboratory, was a constant reminder that the responsibility of keeping Tech in contact with the real work of the world had shifted. "Prof" Allen, infinitely patient and loyal, would have been the last man in the world to admit that he had also inherited some of the old arguments about the proper balance of theoretical and practical emphasis.The laws of flowing water remain unchanged, said Professor Allen, but views change with increasing knowledge. He himself had done a share in increasing that knowledge by the introduction of his "salt velocity method," accepted throughout the world as a standard hydraulic measurement.

"Q equals av" was a formula which Professor Allen never let his boys forget. Riding beside an open window on a train one day in Ohio, Professor Allen heard a cry from a passing train, "Is Q still equal to av?"--the unmistakable call of an old Tech student.

Shortly before War was declared a quiet announcement had appeared in the newspaper to the effect that Robert Goddard, a Tech graduate now teaching at Clark University, had been given a small grant for work on "a rocket." With the blessing of the august Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Goddard's work invited new interest, and arrangements were made whereby he might use Tech's old Magnetic Laboratory for experimental purposes. This far-away corner of the campus and its mysteriously preoccupied master seemed all the farther away because of the seething war atmosphere with which everyone's emotions were charged. Nevertheless, Dr. Goddard had good rapport of discussion with the professors on the hill, and occasionally they were able to lend him a hand.

Sometimes Dr. Goddard would walk up the hill to talk over his speculations and frustrations with his old teachers, especially Dr. Duff, and sometimes even with the new ones. One day in a later year when he paced the floor talking out his problems of stabilization, the young Kenneth Merriam said, "I have a couple of Pioneer gyros here," and handed one to Dr. Goddard. Later Professor