THE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER 



POWER AS RELATED TO FOREST 



RESERVES 



BY 



A. L FELLOWS 



District Engineer, United States Reclamation Service 



I IGHT and heat, air and water, all earth's elements 

 combine in the formation of a habitation fitted 

 for her children. Nature has apparently employed 

 all her many agencies and utilized all her generative 

 forces in heaping up her bounteous and varied stores 

 for the enjoyment of her creatures. Through untold 

 ages she was engaged in preparing a home for her 

 humbler children, and throughout the countless cen- 

 turies that have passed since the earth was first fitted 

 for the sustenance of life, she has continuously been 

 perfecting conditions suitable for higher and yet higher 

 species of living, sentient creatures, until, at the present 

 time, man, that species which we in our self-esteem 

 count highest of them all, holds the center of the stage. 

 Amongst the many secondary agencies which the 

 great all-Mother has utilized in making this earth a 

 habitation and a home for all her creatures, the forest 

 stands almost preeminent. It has clothed the earth 

 as with a garment, protecting it from storms and 

 erosion. It has been the home of almost all varieties 

 of land life from the lowest to the highest. It has 

 saved its denizens from the rigors of the winter's cold 

 and from the summer's scorching heat. Not contented 

 with the bestowal of mere temporary benefits, it has 

 stored up in the coal measures the heat and sunshine 

 of summers long past for the use and enjoyment of 



