A Sportsman 409 



The drainage area tributary to the system com- 

 prises over 3000 square miles, which is almost en- 

 tirely forest. The average precipitation of rain, which 

 includes that from melting snow, is estimated at 42 

 inches. The altitude above tide water varies from 

 1 200 feet to 1600 feet. 



The Rangeley waters are all well stocked with trout, 

 excepting the Umbagog, the lower lake (partly in 

 New Hampshire), which a dozen years ago was found to 

 contain pickerel, and these have been disastrous to the 

 trout, and in consequence have thinned out the greater 

 proportion of the small fish, although some quite large 

 ones are now occasionally caught. I have heard of 

 several being caught weighing from eight to nine 

 pounds. In winters, until the railroad was com- 

 pleted to Bemis lately, it was difficult to get at the 

 principal lakes, excepting Rangeley Lake proper, which 

 adjoins the small town of Rangeley, and there are no 

 settlements or towns adjoining the big lake or the 

 smaller lakes or the Richardsons, excepting the town 

 of Andover, which is twelve miles from the head of the 

 lower Richardson, and which is connected by a road 

 so little used in the winter that I formerly had to get it 

 broken out for my party, and have sometimes had to go 

 to the expense of $40 or $50 to do so. 



In one instance, a number of years ago, five feet of 

 snow fell while I was at the lake, and drifted so badly 

 that I had to snow-shoe my way out with a com- 

 panion over the mountains, twenty- two miles (we being 

 up the lake twelve miles), which required our almost 

 constant exertions for seventeen hours, leaving at 6 

 A.M. and arriving out at Andover at n P.M. In one 

 instance we were two days in getting over the road 



