3 
quite level. As the land-drains must of necessity outflow into 
the river, water backs up into them during freshets, and may 
temporarily flood limited low areas, 
The average surface of the river is governed by the dam at the 
Lorillard Mansion. After careful surveys and studies this dam 
was lowered sixteen inches several years ago, and this resulted 
in reclaiming much of the marshy ground and caused flood water 
to pass down the valley much more rapidly than before; the 
river has not reached heights as great since this work was done 
as it did before. We thought at that time that about eight inches 
further lowering of the dam would be desirable, but this would 
futher diminish the height of the waterfall by that amount. 
A typical freshet was studied from December 13 to 15, 1909. 
A storm commenced with snow in the early morning of December 
13, changed to rain before noon and rainfall continued until late in 
the evening ; the total precipitation measured by the rain-gauge 
on the museum building was 2.44 inches ; the ground was slightly 
frozen in the morning but thawed out dune the day ; the river 
rose gradually at first, then more and more rapidly, reaching its 
maximum height of just about level with its banks at about five 
o’clock on December 14, flooding some low areas, rising in all 
nearly four feet in twenty-four hours; by nine o'clock in the 
morning of December 15 it had sean fallen two feet and by 
five o'clock that afternoon it went down nearly another foot and 
nearly all the depressions were emptied again. 
. L. Britton. 
REPORT ON A TRIP TO SANTO DOMINGO. 
Dr. N. L. Barrron, Direcror-1n-CuHIeF, 
Sir; Acting under your instructions I left New York on Oc- 
tober 13 for the republic of Santo Domingo. Iwas accompanied 
by Mrs. Taylor, who took charge of the drying of most of the 
plants collected, and also made twenty-four colored drawings 
of orchids and fungi. The specimens secured have all come 
from the provinces of Samana, Seibo and Macoris. In view of the 
fact that this is the first expedition of the Garden to this country, 
