waterlocks

"No, for water's sake," Grghaok threw up his hands excitedly, "not unless you know the secret waterlocks and then only in a tiny boat."

Enemy in the Dark Mahr, Kurt 1975

In New England, where the old theocratical oligarchy of the colonies had survived the Revolution and kept under its own waterlocks the new flood of trade, the conservatism of politics reinforced the conservatism of religion; and as if these two inquisitions were not enough to stifle the soul of man, the conservatism of business self-interest was superimposed.

Emerson and Other Essays John Jay Chapman 1897