384 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



JAMES DUNBAR testified that in building the dam logs were put in the Beaver River as far up 

 as Wolf Creek and floated down ; that some of the pieces of tmiber were from twenty to thirty, and 

 some forty feet long. That the current in the river in its original condition was so strong that it took 

 harder work and at least one-third longer to row up than it did down ; and that between the State 

 dam and the place where lumbering operations are now being conducted there is only one tributary 

 stream, called the North Pond Creek, which varies in depth from one to two feet, and is about 

 twenty feet wide. 



HON. T. M. REED, Ex-District Attorney of Lewis County, who has known the river for twenty 

 years, testified that there was a good strong current all the way from Stillwater dam up. The banks 

 of the stream varied ; some would be higher than others, being on the average from three to five feet 

 in height ; some, six feet in height. There were a few flood jams. In high water large trees would 

 float down. 



HON. LANSING HOTALING, an attorney at Albany, and formerly Member of Assembly, 

 testified that he had known the Beaver River since 1868 ; has been there each year. That when the 

 river was in its original condition the banks of the stream between Stillwater and Little Rapids 

 were ordinarily three to four feet above the stream. 



DAVID C. WOOD, a surveyor and engineer, testifies that the river in its original width was 

 about fifty feet wide, thirty-eight feet wide in its narrowest place, and sixty-five feet wide in its widest 

 place. 



Upon such evidence as this the claimant feels justified in submitting as established facts : 



(:i.) That from the source of the Beaver River at Lake Lila down to where it is now driven, four 

 miles below the State dam, it is abundantly established that the river has size and capacity sufficient 

 to float logs. 



(1^.) That from where logs are now being actually driven, four miles below the dam, actual 

 experience has demonstrated that this portion of the river is floatable for logs. 



The learned Attorney-General, however, felt that if the attention of these witnesses had been 

 directed to certain facts, they would see the error of their views concerning the floatability of the 

 river, and taking the claimant's witnesses in hand, proceeded to show by cross-examination that 

 because of low banks and bends in that portion of the river between Stillv/ater dam and Little Rapids, 

 that because the river was crooked and would overflow its banks and carry the logs out into the brush 

 and swamp, and by reason of boulders below the dam, logs would be obstructed; therefore the river 

 was not floatable. 



The following is an abstract of the evidence upon these subjects : 



GEORGE T. CRAWFORD testified that the making of improvements in the channel below was 

 not at all necessary, but was simply to cheapen transportation ; that it would cost the owner of the logs 

 less to expend money in that way than to employ additional help for the purpose of getting logs down 

 the stream. Between High Falls and the State dam he suggested improvements which, all told, would 

 cost about $300 in the way of blasting, to cheapen transportation. Logs have been actually driven 

 above High Falls. He testified further that the crookedness of the stream above the dam was no 

 obstacle ; that more or less logs would hang to the shores in the bends of the stream and would 

 require a little more attention to keep them in the channel ; that if logs were thirteen or sixteen feet 

 long there was sufficient room so that they would float without sticking on the shores and would swing 

 around the bends ; that any low banks there might be along the river would be no obstacle to the 

 floating of logs ; that wherever a marsh or low bank existed along the sides of the river in smooth 

 water, like the Beaver River, a boom should be constructed to hold the logs in the channel, so as to 

 prevent the timber from getting over the banks into the marsh, and that $50 would construct one- 

 half mile of the boom ; and that there would be no difficulty from any overflow of the river if the logs 

 were held back and not put in the river until the annual freshets had subsided so that the river was 

 within its banks. 



HON. MELVILLE W. VAN AMBER testified on cross-examination in reply to the questions of 

 the learned Attorney-General, that from Little Rapids down there was no place where the stream was 



