Word: dam
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Tinker's Dam...
...misuse the expression "tinker's dam" by spelling it "tinker's damn" [TIME, Jan. 7]? ... The latter expression means nothing. A tinker's dam was really a dam made of clay, which the traveling tinkers used to surround a spot on a pan or kettle to keep the solder from spreading or running until it cooled, while [the utensil was] being repaired. As soon as the solder cooled, the dam was thrown away as useless and worthless. Hence . . . "tinker's dam" to denote something having no value...
...raising the level of the upper reaches of the north-flowing Pechora and Vychegda Rivers (see map). Here in the flatlands, an imperceptible earth curve is all that determines whether rivers flow south to the grainfields or north to the Arctic. G.V.P. wants them to flow south. The Kuibyshev dam has already been started. All the rest of G.V.P. is still just a bright gleam in the Soviet...
...over 1944. Its 600,000 consumers used 48% more power for 21% less money than the average U.S. consumer (1.85? per kwh. v. the national average of 3.47?), thanks to the fact that TVA can spread its operating costs over more projects. Example: dam building can be charged off to malaria and flood control, etc., instead of power production...
...virtually completed its flood control and navigation projects in 1945. It closed the mile-and-a-half-long Kentucky Dam near the mouth of the Tennessee River and 480-ft.-high Fontana Dam on he Little Tennessee. With these and the 24 other dams in the system, TVA now has a navigation channel on the Tennessee some 650 miles long; and 13,000,000 acre-feet of water storage space for flood control, navigation and power...