758 INFLUENCE OF FORESTS UPON STREAMS. [April 



furnished power sufficient for four sawmills nearly all the year. 

 It began to dry up as the cutting of the timber commenced in its 

 vicinity, and the water and the woods now have disappeared 

 together. In the adjoining towns of Titzwilliam and Eindge, the 

 same results have been reached. Well-known trout-streams, once 

 well stocked with fish, are now dry one-half of the year, the ground 

 having become treeless. In Chesterfield the flow of the streams is 

 reported as more irregular than in early times. The same is true 

 of the streams about Xashua. The Merrimac Eiver, so important 

 for manufacturing purposes, is protected from great variations in its 

 volume from month to month by means of large ponds and dams, 

 but one of the oldest inhabitants of Franklin, who has observed the. 

 river for sixty years, thinks its volume has diminished one-fourth 

 in that period. One who has given much attention to the subject 

 is confident that the water in the Contoocook River has decreased 

 one-third, even within twenty years, and that its tributaries have 

 fallen off still more. At Hanover, it is said, the Connecticut Eiver 

 for many years has been decreasing in volume, and with increasing 

 rapidity the timber from its headwaters has been floating by. In 

 Canaan, sixty-five years ago, there were nine or more mills ; 

 abundant water-power all tlie year round ; no thought of reservoirs, 

 double dams, or precautions against drought. A native of the 

 place, returning after an absence of thirty years, found the hills 

 and rocks bare, the springs choked up, and the mills obliged to 

 resort to steam-power or to lie idle. Even in the northern counties, 

 where the timber is still comparatively abundant, similar testimony 

 is given. In tlie town of Littleton, three of its oldest citizens 

 testify that the power of the Ammonoosuc at that point has 

 diminished one-third within fifty or sixty years. An intelligent 

 observer at Berlin, on the Androscoggin, says that the water in eight 

 brooks and two ponds in his vicinity has materially diminished 

 within twenty-six years. Six years ago he supplied his stock with 

 water from what was then an unfailing brook, b}^ means of an 

 aqueduct, which furnished three hundred gallons per hour. Xow 

 that the trees along the stream have been destroyed by the wood- 

 man's axe and by forest fires, his water-supply is cut short in 

 summer by drought and in winter by frost. 



The geological character of jSI'ew Hampshire is such that it must 

 continue largely a wood and timber bearing State. " Nature herself," 

 say the Commissioners, " in the very configuration of the State's 

 surface, and in the character of its soil, absolutely commands that 

 whatever may be the preference of its inhabitants, at least one-half 

 of it shall remain perpetually devoted to tlie production of wood 

 and timber, and that what nature has unalterablv ordained it 



