324 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Appalachian Mountains. This letter and the report of the com- 

 mittee of the Academy appointed to consider the matter are 

 given in full in the Report for the year mentioned. As they 

 are self-explanatory, they are quoted in full in this place. 



" United States Senate 

 " Committee on Forest Reservations and the Protection of Game, 



" April 1 6, 1902. 

 " Prof. Alex. Agassiz, 



" President National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C. 

 " Dear Sir : There is now before Congress a bill looking to the establishment 

 of a national forest reserve to include the higher and larger masses of mountains 

 in the Southern Appalachian region. 



" This measure is to be considered at an early date by the Senate Committee 

 on Forest Reservations, and in order that the best interests of the country may be 

 served in this connection I will be greatly pleased if the Committee on Forest 

 Reservations may have the benefit of the Academy's advice. 



" Yours very truly, 



"J. R. Burton." 



" Boston, April 30, 1902. 

 " Alexander Agassiz, Esq., 



" President National Academy of Sciences. 



"Sir: The committee of the Academy to whom you have referred the 

 request of the chairman of the Committee on Forestry of the Senate of the United 

 States for an opinion on the advisability of establishing an Appalachian forest 

 reserve, have examined Senate Document No. 84, Fifty-seventh Congress, first 

 session, being the message from the President of the United States transmitting 

 a report of the Secretary of Agriculture in relation to the forests, rivers, and 

 mountains of the Southern Appalachian region (without the accompanying 

 illustrations), and a copy of Senate bill 5228, for the purchase of a national 

 forest reserve in the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, to be known as the 

 ' National Appalachian Forest Reserve,' and beg to state that they are in full 

 sympathy with the principle of forest reservations intended to preserve the 

 gradual distribution of rainfall in the flow of rivers heading therein. 



" They do not feel, however, without a personal examination of the region in 

 question, qualified to give an opinion as to whether the recent disastrous floods in 

 various rivers flowing from the Appalachian Mountains, recounted in the reports 

 transmitted by the Bureau of Forestry and by the Geological Survey and con- 

 tained in Document No. 84, resulted from the actual destruction of the forests, 

 and as to whether their repetition could be prevented by a restoration of the 



