No. 112.] 735 



streams will be dried up, and it "uill become imperatively neces- 

 sary to adopt artificial means to control and preserve the water 

 power of this county. 



Lake Placid is near, but does not unite with that system of 

 lakes and rivers which indicate the track, and will hereafter 

 constitute the basis of an extensive and valuable inland naviga- 

 tion. I propose to recur again to this highly important and in- 

 teresting topic. 



RIVERS. 



The elevated and e5:tended highlands of Essex county, na- 

 turally form the great water shed of an extended territory. In 

 their recesses, the sources of the Hudson almost mingle wiih the 

 waters that flow intoChamplain and the tributaries of the St. Law- 

 rence. A rivulet gurgling towards the Hudson, flows from one ex- 

 tremity of the Indian Pass, and a branch of the An Sable from the 

 opposite. A pond, lying amid the rocks, hundreds of feet above 

 the pass, discharges its waters into a confluent of the St. Lawrence. 

 The streams of a district, like Essex county, broken and mountain- 

 ous, will be numerous, but turbulent and precipitous. These char- 

 acteristics are eminently useful in the aspect of a manufacturing 

 Interest. Wherever the demands of business require water power 

 in the county, it exists or can be at once created. 



The tributaries of the Hudson, traverse every section of the 

 southwestern portion of the county, and afford illimitable facili- 

 ties to various mechanical and other industrial occupations. 

 Putnam's creek, formed by the lakes and ponds in the mountains 

 of the interior, courses a distance of twenty miles, supplying the 

 power to numerous works, and enters the lake at Crown Puint. 

 The Eoqiiet, interlaces by its numerous branches, the central por- 

 tion of the county, and allording, in a course of forty-five miles, 

 unnumbered water privileges, discharges into the lake at Willsboro. 

 Several (^f the most extensive and valuable manufacturing works in 

 the county, are establislit'd u^)on tliis stream. Tlio Eoquet was for- 

 merly navigable to the falls, a distance f>f three miles, by the 

 largest vessels upon the lake. Its channel, now changed and ob- 

 structed, only admits, at favorable periods of the year, the light- 

 est crafts. 



