FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 53 



have measured it lately, and it is very seriously diminished. We 

 know that high water is higher than it ever was before. It is 

 rapidly coming to the time when we should take hold of this subject, 

 because a few years will make all the difference in the world. The 

 diminution and the increase of floods in the drought are separating 

 themselves in a geometric ratio in just a few years. 



Mr. WEEKS. Suppose you were going to build a dam on the stream 

 to-day, would you build any stronger dam to develop the same 

 horsepower than you did ten years ago when you built the one you 

 speak of? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The dam that I did build takes these floods and 

 just rolls them over the top, and it does not make any difference 

 about the flood so far as it holds the water; the excess water flows 

 over the dams. Our trouble is twofold, less water in a dry time and 

 a filling up of the pond. Our pond is practically filled up there. We 

 have to depend on the regular flow of water, and the quantity of the 

 water flowing in in drought is less than it used to be. That is, we 

 have less water at times than we used to have. 



Mr. HASKINS. It fills up with silt and sand ? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Yes, sir; it fills up with silt and sand. 



The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that diminished flow is due to the 

 fact that your reservoir is filled up? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The diminished flow is not, but if the silt and 

 sand did not come down, we could store water all night and run it 

 during the day. That resource has been completely taken away from 

 us, but the actual flow is less than it used to be. We do not pretend 

 to know just the best way to proceed about this thing, and we ask 

 Congress to appoint people who do know how to remedy it and we 

 will do it promptly. 



Mr. HARVEY. The next gentleman we shall hear will be Mr. C. C. 

 Goodrich, of Connecticut. 



STATEMENT OF MR. C. C. GOODRICH, OF CONNECTICUT, GENERAL 

 MANAGER OF THE NEW YORK AND HARTFORD GENERAL 

 TRANSPORTATION COMPANY. 



Mr. GOODRICH. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 

 have been requested by Governor Woodruff to appear at this hear- 

 ing. I do not know that the Governor expected me to say anything, 

 because I am not a speaker; I am not used to appearing before a 

 committee, and yet the chairman this morning asked for informa- 

 tion on certain points that it did seem to me, perhaps, I could be 

 of use to him in. First, as to the flow of the Connecticut River, as 

 observed, and as to the building of the bars and the final disposition 

 of the sand as it reaches the sea. I have been for forty years engaged 

 in marine commerce, at the present time handling more than 40 ves- 

 sels of from 500 to 5,000 tons register. I have observed in all these 

 years, going back even further than my service as the manager or 

 vice-president, and I remember the time when our river, forty years 

 ago. received its high-water season and continued it away along un- 

 til the middle of June, when the common inquiry was. u How much 

 snow is there left in the forests in the White Mountains in New 

 Hampshire and in Vermont? " We could depend in those years 

 upon operating without difficulty from low water until about the 



