FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 379 



WHY WATER-POWER DEVELOPMENT HAS BEEN BACKWARD IN NEW YORK. 



The foregoing statistics of possible water development in the State of New York 

 suggest the very pertinent questions, why with such natural resources and with the 

 advantage of position the water power of the State has not been more fully utilized. 

 The answer to this question involves consideration of certain State policies from early 

 in the present century and which cannot be well discussed in detail at this time.* 

 A few of the reasons for our backwardness in this particular are as follows: 



LAWS OF RIPARIAN OWNERSHIP IN NEW YORK. 



As a main reason why, in view of the superior natural advantages, the development 

 of water power interests in the State of New York has been relatively backward, we 

 may cite the curiously diverse views as to the law of riparian ownership which prevail 

 in different parts of the State. On lower and middle Hudson River as well as in most 

 of Mohawk Valley all original titles are derived from the laws of Holland as they 

 existed early in the seventeenth century. Under the Dutch law the riparian proprietors 

 owned neither the beds nor the banks of the streams, but both remained the property 

 of the State. When the colony of New Netherlands passed into the hands of the 

 English Government the colonists were assured the peaceful enjoyment of all the 

 rights they then possessed. The beds of large streams never having been conveyed 

 became then vested in the English Government as ungranted lands, to which as a 

 consequence of the Revolutionary war the State of New York succeeded in due course. 



The English common law, which became in force in the colony of New York after 

 the English occupancy, differs from the civil law of Holland, in affirming the right of 

 the riparian proprietors not only to the banks of non-navigable large streams, but also 

 to the beds thereof, and hence to a right to the flow of the water paramount to that 

 of the State, which can only acquire rights therein by the exercise of eminent domain 

 and the granting of just compensation. This principle applies to all the streams of 

 the State except lower and middle Hudson and Mohawk, as already stated. 



COMPENSATION IN KIND ON BLACK RIVER. 



On Black River still another view has prevailed. Generally the legislatures and 

 courts of this country have been chary about recognizing the principle of compensation 

 in kind, although in riparian matters this principle is common enough in England. 



* For discussion in detail, see the author's paper : On the Application of the Principles of Forestry 

 and Water Storage to the Mill Streams 01 the State of New York, read before the American Paper 

 and Pulp Association at its Twenty-second Annual Meeting, 1899. 



