324 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Appalachian Mountains. This letter and the report of the com- 
mittee of the Academy appointed to consider the matter are 
given in full in the Report for the year mentioned. As they 
are self-explanatory, they are quoted in full in this place. 
“ UNITED STATES SENATE 
“ COMMITTEE ON Forest RESERVATIONS AND THE PROTECTION OF GAME, 
“ April 16, 1902. 
“ Pror. ALEX. AGASSIZ, 
“ President National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C. 
“Dear Sir: There is now before Congress a bill looking to the establishment 
of a national forest reserve to include the higher and larger masses of mountains 
in the Southern Appalachian region. 
“This measure is to be considered at an early date by the Senate Committee 
on Forest Reservations, and in order that the best interests of the country may be 
served in this connection I will be greatly pleased if the Committee on Forest 
Reservations may have the benefit of the Academy’s advice. 
“Yours very truly, 
“J. R. Burton.” 
“ Boston, April 30, 1902. 
“ ALEXANDER AGAssiZz, Esa., 
“ President National Academy of Sciences. 
“Sir: The committee of the Academy to whom you have referred the 
request of the chairman of the Committee on Forestry of the Senate of the United 
States for an opinion on the advisability of establishing an Appalachian forest 
reserve, have examined Senate Document No. 84, Fifty-seventh Congress, first 
session, being the message from the President of the United States transmitting 
a report of the Secretary of Agriculture in relation to the forests, rivers, and 
mountains of the Southern Appalachian region (without the accompanying 
illustrations), and a copy of Senate bill 5228, for the purchase of a national 
forest reserve in the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, to be known as the 
“National Appalachian Forest Reserve,’ and beg to state that they are in full 
sympathy with the principle of forest reservations intended to preserve the 
gradual distribution of rainfall in the flow of rivers heading therein. 
“They do not feel, however, without a personal examination of the region in 
question, qualified to give an opinion as to whether the recent disastrous floods in 
various rivers flowing from the Appalachian Mountains, recounted in the reports 
transmitted by the Bureau of Forestry and by the Geological Survey and con- 
tained in Document No. 84, resulted from the actual destruction of the forests, 
and as to whether their repetition could be prevented by a restoration of the 
