FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 38 1 



1864 and 1865, blasting boulders, cutting out bends and floodwood, and that a gang of thirty or forty 

 men were employed at the work. 



CHARLES HIGHBY, residing at Beaver Falls, and working at present in the pulp mills there, 

 and who was a river driver for thirteen or fourteen years on the Beaver River, testified that work was 

 done by the State in 1864 and 1865, in blasting rocks in the channel of the river, from just below 

 Belfort up to where the State dam is now located, and that he worked upon the job ; that it was 

 calculated to blast a channel twenty to thirty feet wide, and that at one place just below Beaver Falls, 

 the channel was blasted only si.xteen feet wide ; that two gangs of men were employed, and that the 

 material used for blasting was black powder and fuse. (Since the invention of dynamite more 

 attention is paid to river improvements for log driving than formerly, when black powder was used. 

 Dynamite is cheaper and much more effective, and more can be accomplished with a given sum 

 of money than with black powder. Testimony, Wesley Barnes. ) 



Mr. Highby also testifies that, from his experience as a log driver, he should say the river was 

 perfectly feasible to drive in its original condition without any blasting of rocks, but that by means of 

 blasting the expense of driving would be lessened. 



HIRAM BURKE, a guide on the Beaver River, testified that shortly after the war, he saw work 

 done which was claimed to have been done by the State, by way of blasting boulders in the Beaver 

 River from the State dam all the way through to Number 4, and that a bend was cut off in the river. 



This channel blasted out by the State is clear and well defined, and is spoken of by several of the 

 witnesses, namely : 



MR. GEORGE T. CRAWFORD, a lumberman froin Boston, Mass., testified that when exam- 

 ining the river in 1887, he noted in his memoranda this channel, which he was informed was blasted 

 out by the State twenty years ago. 



MR. SAMUEL O. BOULLIVAXT, a lumberman of twenty-five years' experience, largely on the 

 Beaver River, testified that the year the dam was raised the gates were shut down, and the water was 

 down ; that he walked up the river from High Falls and noticed that there had been a good deal of 

 blasting done there; that it evidently had been the intention to make a drivable stream of it. It 

 was blasted and I could follow the channel all the way from High Falls. 



ZEB. DUPUY, a lumberman and river driver of thirty-seven years' experience, largely on the 

 Beaver River, testified that a channel had been blasted out between High Falls and the State dam of 

 an average width of fifty feet, wide enough for the floating of logs. 



Upon the passage of this act of 1864, and the making of these improvements, Beaver River was 

 taken into the canal system and used by the State for canal purposes. 



HON. MELVILLE W. VAN AMBER, Member of Assembly from Lewis County, testifies that 

 they took toll on the Beaver River, and that the State drag has worked on a portion of it. 



From this evidence there can be no doubt that in 1864 an act was passed under which $10,000 

 was expended in improving the rafting channel of the Beaver River ; that from the dam down to 

 Sunday Creek (which is below where lumbering is now carried on) a channel was blasted out through 

 the boulders ; that under the act of 1864 the river was taken into the canal system of the State and 

 those floating logs required to pay toll ; and that toll was subsequently taken and collected on the 

 Beaver River. Surely the State of New York, after having passed an act declaring the stream a 

 public highway and having expended $10,000 in improving its navigation and requiring all persons 

 using it to pay toll, can not now assume the position that the river is not a floatable or navigable 

 stream. The State is estopped from claiming or asserting that the river is not navigable. The 

 learned Attorney-General, however, took the position upon the trial that the river was not in fact 

 capable of being used for floating logs, so that it is necessary to examine the evidence somewhat 

 critically upon this score. 



(2.) The Evidence as to the Actual Floatability of Beaver River for Logging 

 Purposes. 



The evidence is abundant that the river is a floatable stream. There can be no reasonable dispute 

 but that the river is a floatable stream as far up at least as to the point where logs are now being 

 floated. 



