FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 3°S 



ment does not provide for the appointment of such an official, and as our annual 

 appropriation makes no provision for such an expenditure, some legislation seems 

 necessary if this recommendation meets with your approval. 



The Commission has noted with dissatisfaction and regret the failure of many of 

 the firewardens to send in their reports promptly after a fire has occurred. Most of 

 them wait until the end of the year, when it is too late to make the necessary inquiries 

 into the cause of the fire and institute proceedings for a violation of the law. To pro- 

 vide against this persistent negligence of many firewardens, the law relating to forest 

 fires should be amended so that no firewarden shall receive pay from a town board 

 until he has first sent his report and bill to this Commission, in order to have it 

 properly audited and stamped before it is presented by him to the town board for 

 payment. The Commission is justified in making this requirement, because the State 

 is obliged to refund to each Adirondack and Catskill town one half of the total amount 

 paid to a firewarden for the expenses and services of himself and assistants in fighting fire. 



I would embrace this opportunity to commend to the favorable consideration 

 of the Board the valuable and meritorious work which has been done in the 

 Adirondacks during the past few years, and is still being carried on, by the 

 United States Geological Survey. The United States officials connected with this 

 work are men of the highest attainments in their profession, and the people of our 

 State are to be congratulated on thus receiving the benefit of their services. The 

 work of this survey is topographical, as well as geographical in its character. The 

 greater part of the Adirondack region has been surveyed and mapped by them, and 

 the entire work will be completed within a comparatively short time. These maps, 

 which are on file in this Department, and also in the office of the State Engineer and 

 Surveyor, are open to inspection by the members of the Commission, and I trust 

 that in the course of your duties you will give them' a careful examination. The 

 maps are on a large scale, showing accurately the location of every mountain, river, 

 and smallest stream. The situation of each lake, pond, and tiny sheet of water is also 

 shown. Every marsh, swamp, and piece of meadow land appears, depicted in the 

 conventional characters used by skilful draughtsmen. Every road and trail is care- 

 fully laid down, the location of every house and barn properly noted, as well as that 

 of every village, hamlet and hotel. The site of each bridge and dam along the 

 streams is also shown. But the greatest value of this survey is found in the accurate 

 delineation of the mountain topography. From the slightest elevation to the highest 

 mountain the steepness of the land is shown in lines of twenty-foot contours, while on 

 the summits of all the large hills and mountains, as shown on the map, figures are 

 inserted indicating the altitude of these peaks above the sea level. The surveyors in 

 their work noted, as they went along, the location of the blazed lines that mark the 



