WATER 189 



terrain as natural as possible. Thousands, for example, take advantage 

 during summer heat of improvements developed at Lake Rabun, a large 

 power lake on the Chattahoochee National Forest in the mountains of 

 North Georgia. Here, with the cooperation of the power company, an 

 attractive portion of the shore line has been developed for public use by 

 the installation of a sand beach, boat dock, diving raft, and other facilities. 

 The lake, which is 17 miles long, is clean and lovely, suited for purposes of 

 restful contemplation, or for swimming, or boating, or fishing. Since it is 

 one lake in a series of four, the water level is maintained without difficulty 

 during the recreational-use period. 



To Guard the Crests and all the lands below against excessive run-off, 

 properly managed forest cover offers the best protection known. "It's 

 almost as if God made trees and brush to do this job!" says a forest officer 

 who for years has been studying ways to make a far western forest deliver 

 more gently to parched lowlands the most vital crop of those mountains — 

 water. 



The best sort of forest cover presents successive layers of resistance to 

 rapid run-off. First, the treetops: Snow or rain, falling, is detained by the 

 forest canopy, the roof of foliage. Here some of it clings and drips down 

 gradually, but some clings so long that the sun sucks it back into the sky. 

 Water losses upward from snow rapidly melting and evaporating on thick 

 foliage may be considerable. On certain national-forest watersheds where the 

 yield of delivered water is of crucial importance, as in Colorado, the char- 

 acteristic canopy makes a roof so dense that much snow moisture returns 

 to the clouds without touching the earth. Here systems of cuttings are defi- 

 nitely planned so as, in effect, to make holes in the forest roof and let more 

 water directly down into thirsty soil. 



Some water, of course, makes its way quietly down the limbs and the 

 trunks of trees, and enters the ground that way. Other water dripping from 

 the upper foliage is again detained by underbrush, which drips it in turn 

 upon the litter and ground cover, the last conserving layer opposed to 

 rapid run-off of water, and of soil. 



In western regions that depend for their very life upon stored water 



