24 HISTORY OF LUMBER INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK. 



viclino- for "rafting timber or lumber." The Grasse River was made 

 a highway in 1824, and in 1854 an act was passed "to improve" this 

 stream "for floating timber and saw-logs." 



The years in which other rivers were delared oublic highways for 

 floating logs were as follows: 



Genesee River a 1818 St, Regis: 



Delaware River 1822 West Branch 1854 



Saranac River 1846; East Branch 1860 



Moose River 1851 \ Oswegatchie River 1854 



Chateaugay River 1851 \ Sacandaga River 1854 



Beaver River 1853 Great Chazy River 1857 



West Canada Creek 1854 \ Deer River 1867 



FLOODING DAMS. 



After the merchantable timber along the main rivers had been cut 

 lumbermen turned their attention to the more remote and inaccessible 

 tracts on mountain slopes, where the streams were narrow, rocky, 

 and rapid. Then commenced the erection of "splash" or "flooding" 

 dams, which were used to drive the logs out of the small streams on 

 the temporary, artificial floods caused by opening the gates, and also to 

 reenforce the subsiding waters of the main stream. 



These flooding dams seldom did any damage to standing timber, because 

 the ponds were always drawn down in the early spring when the water 

 was needed for log-driving, and the gates were left open until the next 

 spring. There was no backflow during the period of vegetation, and 

 the temporary flooding of the roots of the trees jn the spring did not 

 kill the timber. Trees are killed only where water is allowed to cover 

 the ground for two or more successive summers. There is a general 

 impression, however, to the contrary, and that the lumbermen with their 

 flooding dams are responsible for the killing of live timber and the 

 destruction of forest scenery. But the dead timber in the flowed lands 

 of the Adirondacks is, in nearly every instance, the result of some dam 

 or reservoir which was built in the interest of the State canals, local 

 steamboat lines, or manufactories on the lower waters. The lumber- 

 men had little or nothing to do with it. 



In the southern and western portions of New York lumbermen rarely 

 built these flooding dams. The country was not so mountainous nor 

 the streams so rapid or violent as in the Adirondacks; the spring floods 

 held up longer by reason of a less rapid flow, and log driving was 

 easier in every respect, 



LOG-DRIVERS AND THEIR WORK. 



The beginning of log-driving was coincident with the sudden increase 

 in the development of the countiw at the commencement of the last 



11 In 1828 the Genesee River was declared a public highway from Rochester to the 

 Pennsylvania line. 



