96 FOREST commissioner's report. 



clearly marked. Riley is about all mountainous, and is a 

 heavily spruced country on which much of the original growth 

 remains. Grafton, Andover North Surplus, Letters D and 

 E and No. 6, no one on seeing could have any doubt about. 

 They are mountainous in the extreme, and those mountain 

 slopes, except where burnt or cut, are heavily and evenly 

 covered with spruce. 



These townships that I have referred to form a barrier 

 separating the upper from the lower course of the Androscog- 

 gin. To the south is the lower river flowing approximately 

 east for fifty miles, catching streams from both sides of its 

 course. To the north of that barrier lies the Rangeley lake 

 system, again with its axis east and west, and about thirty 

 miles in length. The lakes, therefore, situated as they are 

 close under this mountain barrier, receive only trifling tribu- 

 taries from the south. Their volume is chiefly maintained 

 from the country to the north which drains into them by 

 three considerable streams, the Magalloway, the Cupsuptuc 

 and the Kennebago. The outlet of the system is at the west, 

 where the river forces a way for itself close under the eastern 

 face of the White mountains. At the east on the other hand 

 the upper lakes are closely approached, on high but elevated 

 land, by the head waters of the Dead and Sandy rivers, which 

 run into the Kennebec. 



Now as the Rangeley lakes, with the exception of Umba- 

 gog, are about 1,400 feet above the sea, while the country 

 about is, much of it, considerably higher, this upper Andros- 

 coggin country is more elevated than any other area of equal 

 size within the limits of the State. 



Here then on the headwaters of the Androscoofffin is the 

 chosen home of spruce. Continuous with the high land of north- 

 ern New Hampshire, a part of the great White Mountain pla- 

 teau, this region in its elevation, its uneven topography, and 

 fpruce in ^^^ cHmate seems to aftbrd that combination of 

 Maine. conditions which ministers to the perfect develop- 



ment of this species. The timber of the Appalachian moun- 



