REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I916 19 



III 



CONDITION OF THE SCIENTIFIC RESERVATIONS 

 BELONGING TO THE MUSEUM 



Since the publication of the last report of the Director, the 

 Museum has acquired by the gift of Mr Emerson McMillin, of 

 New York, the property known as the Northumberland volcano, or 

 Stark's knob, situated 2 miles north of Schuylerville. An account 

 of this interesting geological spot has been given in previous reports 

 of the Director, and its structure fully illustrated up to the present 

 state of our knowledge. This gift rescues from certain oblivion 

 what is to New York, and perhaps in a broader sense to geological 

 science, a unique phenomenon. The place is easily accessible to 

 travelers on the road leading from Schuylerville north along the 

 Hudson river, and as the volcanic core is now cut in half by quarry 

 operations, which the gift has happily forestalled, its intimate 

 structure is instructively revealed. This knoll of volcanic rocks 

 has a historic interest because of its association with the Battle of 

 Saratoga and the erection thereupon of the battery by General John 

 Stark. 



Of the three properties now under the control of the State 

 Museum — the Clark Reservation near Jamesville, the Lester Park 

 west of Saratoga Springs, and the Stark's Knob Reservation, only 

 the Lester Park is well protected and satisfactorily monumented. 

 In the case of the Clark Reservation, the donor has been pleased 

 to construct an elaborate and attractive entrance, built of blocks 

 of local limestone, which in the piers of the gateway are of very 

 large dimensions. Otherwise this reservation is without protec- 

 tion. Its line fences are in large measure down, and some of its 

 boundaries, being new lines, have never been fenced at all. As 

 public property the place is rather more exposed now to the steal- 

 ing of timber and the vandalism of collectors of rare ferns than 

 it ever was before, and iwhile, through the kindness of the bene- 

 factor, we have rescued the place from commercial invasion so far 

 as its effective landscape scenery is concerned, we are failing to 

 defend it against the attacks of marauders. It is further to be 

 said that no provision has been made for the accommodation of 

 visitors by the laying out of paths or building stairways, one of 



