Mr. Roberts. 
326 DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
on to all the trees, as the Indians did, without business; but, without 
continued business with the trees, we cannot make homes for many 
more modern Americans. Yet, without more of those trees to cut, 
what is to be done for homes in the future? The problem is indeed 
a vast one, well worthy the attention of the governments, National, 
State, and Municipal. Confronting us, however, there are other 
problems, not connected with the timber question, especially that of 
transportation on our inland waterways, but, so long as it is contended 
that transportation and the forest problem are in the same category, so 
long will the public mind be confused by conflicting statements and 
arguments, and so long will decisive action be delayed. 
As for the silting up of our rivers, complaints regarding it do not 
_emanate from navigators, at least on the Ohio. The writer, as a young 
_man,.lived for four years on an engineer steamer on that river in 
charge of the construction of dikes or wing-dams, surveys, ete., and 
upon inquiry has been assured that, if any changes in conditions of 
navigation have occurred during the past forty years, they have been 
for the better. A great rise from the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers 
by backwater effect may cause the deposition of much silt in the 
main stream, noticeable at times for 200 miles or more, but eventually 
comes a current amply competent to restore the channel to its former 
condition. From end to end the great river has this reserve of energy. 
The theory to the effect that with afforesting of the regions about the 
head-waters there will result such clarification of the waters that the 
river will cease to be silt-bearing, receives scant courtesy from the 
author. One writer argues that the sand now carried in suspension, 
acting like sand-paper, destroys the banks by “abrasive action.” We 
have thus, in one breath, to consider the river banks being sand-papered 
down and the stream itself filling up. The Ohio between Pittsburg 
and Cincinnati has preserved its width between banks and its volu- 
metric capacity very much the same for many decades, while, during 
the same period, that capacity has doubtless been largely exceeded by 
the volume of silt which the river has borne along. The author, there- 
fore, is correct in saying that walling up the river banks would have 
no effect in reducing the volume of silt it transports; nothing would 
do that possibly for the Ohio but a tarpaulin spread over the steep 
hillsides of West Virginia and Kentucky, whence the greater propor- 
tion of the silt comes. Tributaries from soft-rock regions in those 
States can be named by the writer, from personal observation, which 
abounded with shifting sand-bars while yet the country about them 
was practically an unbroken forest. Those primeval forests did not 
prevent the carving of the nearly horizontal strata into the deep ravines 
found in the States named. If, however, the carving process is pro- 
ceeding faster than formerly on some of the tributaries, troubles from 
it have not been reported on. the main streams. 
