FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 39I 



Q. Well, wouldn't it fill up again ? — A. Some years it might, and some it might not ; then after 

 you passed there, and should shut it off, then it would leave you all dry below if you had the chute 

 in ; then if you should take and use that water, draw it down, then the Watertown people would 

 insist upon it that the gates be shut as is done now. 



JAMES DUNBAR testified that it takes from twenty to thirty days of good water to fill the 

 reservoir. It is not to be supposed that the State is going to let this reservoir be drawn down in May 

 and June for a log drive, and run chances to have it fill again for subsequent use in dry weather by 

 Ithe State. 



Even if the claimant could use the dam for lumbering at the same time that the State was using 

 it for storage purposes, still the damages would remain, for as the reservoir is filled with tangle and 

 driftwood, logs could not be taken through ; and even if cleared of tangle and driftwood, logs could 

 not be floated, but it would be necessary to tow them. 

 (8.) Tangles, tree tops and driftwood. 



The whole basin of the reservoir is completely filled with a tangle of driftwood, picked up by the 

 water from the submerged forest, together with tops of trees which were cut off by the State in the 

 winter of 1893 and 1894 and left floating in the water. With the reservoir in its present condition, it 

 would be absolutely impossible to either float or tow logs down the reservoir. It would be necessary 

 to clean out a channel for that purpose. Cleaning out this channel, assuming that one had the right 

 to go upon the State land to cut trees, etc., would be an expensive operation. It would be necessary 

 for the water to be drawn out of the reservoir at least one whole season, so that driftwood, trees, 

 bushes, etc., would dry out so that they could be burned, and it is hardly to be supposed that the 

 people at Watertown having control of the dam would permit the waters to be kept out one whole 

 season. 



The testimony upon this score is clear and convincing. 



GEORGE T. CRAWFORD testified: Rut the great trouble was to get the logs to the dam 

 through this floatage. In the winter of 1887 — in February, 1887 — when I was there, we went to 

 examine the dam. Of course the river was frozen, and the timber at that time hadn't fallen over. 

 The dam hadn't been there long enough to cause the standing timber to tip over. But in 1889, 

 when I was there, there was a very great tangle. The roots of the trees hung in the ground, and the 

 tops floated about. If they hung in three feet of water they would in five feet more and float ; 

 floating islands were floating about. 



JAMES McFARLAND testified that the drift and floodwood lying in water would stay without 

 rotting a great many years; that there was too much brush and timber to tow through; and that small 

 holes were cut in the flood jams to get boats through, but that logs could not be towed through; that 

 the brush, alders and floodwood were so tangled and thick that it was impossible to get out to get 

 the depth of the water ivhen the dam was full ; that half or two-thirds of the timber is under water, 

 and in clearing it out you can't tell whether you are cutting into roots or not ; and that by reason of 

 the action of the water against the banks, it would undermine the trees so that they would fall into 

 the river channel instead of aw-ay from the channel. 



EDWARD M. BURNS testified that it was a very bad tangle; very difficult to navigate to keep 

 in the channel of the river. The water was not high enough to allow the boat to go over the obstruc- 

 tions—over the alders or the earth— until we got down in the neighborhood of Big Burnt Lake outlet, 

 and that the steamer got stuck in the channel several times. These tangles were down where the trees 

 had fallen over and where the ground appeared to have floated up to the surface. The steamer 

 grounded at times, and at other times she got caught in the floating timber and tangles of alders that 

 appear floating with masses of earth at their roots, and had to be moved back away from the channel. 

 I couldn't tell where the bed of the stream was. It was all new to me. The pilot, as I understood 

 it, was endeavoring to follow the bed of the stream. 



This tangle will become worse year by year as the timber decays. In a few years it will be 

 impenetrable. 



(9.) Necessary to cut the tangle, tree tops and driftwood. 



