1889.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 63 



Sargent, and at once took steps toward securing the desired 

 legislation. 



The New York Tribune, in its issue of December Idth, 1883, 

 said in the course of an article on this subject : ''The committee 

 determined to circulate a memorial to the Legislature through 

 the city and the State. It ought to have a hundred thousand 

 signers before it leaves Manhattan Island. Our law-makers 

 should be made to understand that the business men of the city 

 are in earnest, and that they are not inclined to sit still and see 

 the water-ways of our inland commerce destroyed. 



'' The disastrous climatic changes, the wasting freshets and 

 parching droughts, which will be sure to follow the stripping of 

 the tree-growth from these thousands of square miles, should be 

 prevented at all hazards, and the matter has not been taken in 

 hand a moment too soon." 



The Act provides for the appointment of a Forest Commission 

 by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the 

 Senate, to consist of three persons, who shall serve for six years 

 without compensation. 



The Commission is empowered to employ a forest warden, 

 forest inspectors, a clerk, and all such agents as they may deem 

 necessary, and to fix their compensation. The expenses and 

 salaries of such officers and employees are not to exceed, with 

 the other expenses of the Commission, the sum therefor appro- 

 priated by the Legislature. 



The "iForest Preserve" includes all the lands now owned or 

 which may hereafter be acquir'ed by the State of New York 

 within the counties of Clinton (excepting the towns of Altona 

 and Dannemora), Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, 

 Lewis, Saratoga, St. Lawrence, Warren, Washington, Greene, 

 Ulster, Sullivan, Oneida, and Delaware, — the last two counties 

 having been added since the original Act of 1885. 



The law declares that : — 



" The lands now or hereafter constituting the Forest Preserve 

 shall be forever kept as wild forest-lands. They shall not be 

 sold, nor shall they be leased or taken by any person or corpora- 

 tion, public er private." 



This section was amended in 1887, to provide for the sale or 

 exchange " of separate small parcels or tracts wholly detached 

 from the main portion of the Forest Preserve." 



Section 9 is so important for our purposes that I quote it in 

 full. It is as follows : — 



" The Forest Commission shall have the care, custody, con- 

 trol, and superintendence of the Forest Preserve. It shall 

 be the duty of the Commission to maintain and protect the 

 forests now on the Forest Preserve, and to promote, so far as 



