398 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



THE CLEARING OF THE TIMBER WITHIN THE FLOW LINE OF THE 



INDIAN LAKE RESERVOIR.* 



Indian Lake was originally surrounded by heavy pine and spruce timber, reaching 

 to the water's edge. In the original enlargement the flooded area was not cleared 

 before submergence, but in undertaking the construction of the present masonry dam 

 the plans included the clearing of the flooded area of all standing timber. This was 

 done in deference to the views of people spending the summer in that vicinity, as a 

 matter of pure aesthetics. 



The area of the new flowage was mostly covered with hard and softwood timber 

 — chiefly small spruce and balsam, birch and beech, ash, elm, maple and poplar. The 

 softwood, of commercial size, has long since been cut very closely from the lake 

 margin, in consequence of which the larger trees were chiefly hardwood, which does 

 not float, and which cannot, therefore, be rafted down stream to sawmills and 

 converted into lumber. The problems presented in clearing this area of timber, which 

 was surrounded by very extended forests, were not only somewhat out of the usual 

 line of ordinary engineering experience, but they must necessarily be repeated, in a 

 large measure, in any future construction of reservoirs of considerable magnitude in 

 the great water-gathering ground of the Adirondack region. 



The contract price bid for cutting and burning was $13.50 per acre, which was 

 rather low. Hence, from the contractor's point of view it was necessary for economic 

 reasons that the work of clearing be done cheaply. This, as finally worked out, 

 included in substance (1) felling the trees; (2) the severing of the larger limbs from 

 the trunks, and trimming to such size as to admit of piling and burning; (3) the 

 cutting of the trunks of the trees into suitable lengths either for piling and burning, 

 or for sluicing through the logways provided in the dam ; (4) the branches, under- 

 brush and smaller trees to be in any case piled and burned. The method finally 

 adopted for disposing of the larger trunks or bodies of the trees is substantially as fol- 

 lows: After cutting into proper lengths for burning the brush, etc., the large trunks are 

 to be left until the reservoir is completed and filled, after which the hardwood and soft- 

 wood logs will separate, the former remaining at the bottom and out of the way, while 

 the floating soft wood will be rafted down the lake and sluiced through the dam in the 

 same manner as logs intended for lumber, after which it may be allowed to take care 

 of itself as driftwood in the stream channel below. As to the propriety of throwing 

 a large amount of driftwood into the channel, it may be pointed out that all such is 

 caught at the big boom above Glens Falls and cut into firewood for the Glen Falls, 



* The following detailed account of the work of clearing at Indian Lake has been prepared by 

 Robert E. Horton, who was second assistant on the work. 



