134 College of Forestry 
the water level or unwatered by surface seepage. Countless 
illustrations of this case lie before the eye in any quarter of 
the State, and not only is the difficult problem apparent but 
steps in the solving of it may be studied, and this even on a 
large scale in a region like that of Long Lake West where 
the disastrous forest fires of 1908 laid bare discouraging 
acres of rock and sand. 
To get the full magnitude of the problem we should once_ 
more imagine a terrain in the condition presented upon the 
retreat of the last glacial invasion, or viewing the ground 
from the point of view of the present, imagine the heavy 
vegetation cover of three hundred years ago to be stripped 
off, together with its body of humus, duff, peat, ete., which 
it had built up. Now, of course, such a denuded terrain 
would show a lot of finer till— clay, ete.— capable of re- 
taining a relatively constant and ample supply of moisture. 
Also as we saw, extensive areas covered with water or lying 
so low as to be constantly water soaked. But one would 
especially be impressed by the vast areas of bare and often 
polished rock, rock ledges, accumulations of angular rock 
fragments broken loose from their native strata, deposits of 
rounded water and ice worn boulders — especially the glacial 
moraines of coarser or finer gravel, and, finally, of sand as 
laid down in such vast deposits as we find throughout the 
Adirondacks, on the Ontario-Iroquois basin and at the mouth 
of the Mohawk, Saranac and other rivers. No doubt some of 
this terrain — especially rock cliffs and rugged mountain tops 
—has never been covered with vegetation, but really the 
areas upon which vegetation had not established itself in 
strength enough to build up an organic substratum would be 
almost negligible. This statement is ventured in the face 
of the desolate landscape of bare rock which one sees in so 
much of the Adirondack region to-day. Can vegetation re- 
establish itself on this lost ground and if so, what is the 
course of development? We may get some light on this ques- 
tion from specific illustrations. 
