Water-current meters were used mainly in rivers and canals to measure the rate of water flow. This Baumgarten water current meter, National Museum of American History, PH.314773, was probably made in France in the 1850s or 1860s and was donated to the Smithsonian in 1956 by the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals, the corporation that developed water transportation along the Merrimack River and water power for the town of Lowell, Massachusetts. © Smithsonian Institution; photo AHB2017q128171
