WATER 



187 



to truck in some sand, cheaply, and make a small clean beach by a clean 

 pool or lake in the public forests. 



The job becomes more expensive in drier climates where springs must 

 be found and tapped to augment inflow. Sometimes the compromise works 

 down to a wading pool for the youngsters. But even that is something to sit 

 by and enjoy, if you are older, in hot, dry parts of the country. 



Under pressure of an all but frantic demand and a quickly increasing 

 use, many pleasure-water developments at forest camps and picnic spots 

 have been pushed already beyond simple and sylvan proportions. This 

 was sufficiently indicated in chapter 6. But no other pleasure development 

 on the national forests has proved such a boon or aroused such universal 

 approval, in terms of use, as the creation of lakes and pools in the dry or 

 lakeless sections. 



Consider, for example, a small lake development in a generally lakeless 

 region: Cave Mountain, on the Jefferson National Forest, in Virginia. It 

 is a made lake of 7 acres, with a neat, made crescent of sandy beach, and 

 picnic sets ranged 'round about, under trees. On holidays this simple equip- 

 ment provides recreation for more than 2,000 visitors. Again: 



St. Charles dam in the San Isabel National Forest in southern Colorado 

 is 90 feet high and 600 feet long. That begins to run into money. But this 

 dam impounds a lake 35 acres in extent. It makes a forest lake that is avail- 

 able to a great prairie population and they throng eagerly to relax there 

 during the long, hot summers. 



Tensleep Dam on the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming is only 26 

 feet high, but it creates a 274-acre lake in a generally lakeless region. 

 Bismarck Dam on the Harney National Forest in the Black Hills of South 

 Dakota produced a lake of 23 acres in a locality where recreational use is 

 intense and water scarce, either for use or pleasure. Vesuvius Dam on the 

 Wayne National Forest in southern Ohio, Shores Lake development on 

 the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas, Pounds Hollow Dam on the 

 Shawnee National Forest in Illinois — all are new midwestern watering 

 places of the people. 



Here and there, business interests have not only ceased to hinder, but 

 have stepped in to help keep public watering places and the surrounding 



