FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 83 



on the Androscoggin, the town.shi[)8 of Reddington and Coplin 

 were traversed, a jaunt taken over Kennebago mountain to 

 Tim pond, and Eustis visited, thus covering part of the upper 

 waters of Dead river, which had been skipped in the spring. 

 Then three days were spent in travelling afoot from Stratton, 

 round through Jerusalem and Kingficld, to Salem on the head 

 waters of the Sandy river. On this route the burns and 

 second growth were mapped, some of the spruce territory 

 hastily looked over, and enquiry made of residents as to the 

 timber condition of the country. This was essential to the 

 statistical portion of the work, while here as everywhere 

 else during the season's travel points full of interest and sug- 

 gestion were always outcropping. 



It may be worth while to relate a little incident ^^^^^^^^^"^ 

 which forcibly illustrates the effect on climate pro- i'^''^'^"'*^- 

 duced by a few hundred feet of elevation. At Stratton I was 

 delayed for two days by the long postponed fall i-ains. 

 When the rain stopped it was followed bj' colder weather. 

 Starting out again on Monday morning, the 11th of November, 

 the first thing I did was to climb the western peak of Bigelow, 

 whence a tine view and one very useful as well to my map- 

 ping work was obtained over the whole surrounding country. 

 The value of the second growth here, by the way, is well 

 worthy of remark. A considerable area of pine in Eustis and 

 • large quantities of fine white birch all through the country — 

 this growth having sprung up on the burns of many years 

 ago — both promise and possess a large lumber value. Now 

 when I got perhaps 1,200 or 1,500 feet up the mountain, 

 1 found the trees covered with ice. At the top of the moun- 

 tain, every twig and blade of grass had an icicle about it more 

 than half an inch thick, while the liinl)sof the firs and si)iuces 

 were solid clubs. Plainly, during the last of the rain, it had 

 been enough colder up here on the hills so that the drops 

 froze as thev fell. 



On each of the next two days I climbcul to a point about 

 2,000 feet above the general level of the country. The 

 first day it was the highest peak in eastern Jerusalem or Tread- 



