1885.] An Adirondack National Park. 579 
been led to regard the State as one watershed, The dividing lines 
are too apparent, however, and the physical, climatic and geolog- 
ical differences necessarily form divisions of the State. 
Tke eastern or Adirondack watershed runs almost north and 
south, throwing its waters north into the St. Lawrence, and sou 
into Long Island sound. The western watershed runs nearly 
east and west, at right angles to the Adirondacks, It throws its 
waters from the interior chain of lakes, north into Lake Ontario. 
Its southern drainage flows at oblique angles into Chesapeake 
bay and the Gulf of Mexico. 
The northern drainage of the western watershed occupies seven 
thousand square miles of territory, of which four hundred square 
miles are of lake surface, under the names of Oneida, Cayuga, 
Seneca, etc. This watershed has been made subservient to the 
necessities of commerce and industry. Besides being natural 
reservoirs, its lakes have been regulated to maintain a uniform 
flow through the Oswego river of six hundred thousand cubic 
feet of water per minute, during all seasons of the year. Seven 
dams on this stream, constructed by the state, provide hydraulic 
advantages equal to 140,000 horse-power. Thus the western 
watershed, by fostering gigantic industries, valued at millions, 
repays the State for the expenditure involved in its care. 
The Adirondack watershed is of a different nature; its waters 
are of little commercial or industrial importance. Its rivers, the 
Moose, Beaver, Grass, Raquette, Salmon, Au Sable, Oswegatchie 
and others are high, turbulent and destructive in the spring. In the 
summer they are dry. The Hudson itself would be insignificant 
were it not an arm of the sea, scoured out and kept deep below 
Albany by the tides. 
The Adirondack region has resisted all attempts at cultivation, 
otherwise it would be largely populated. Its mission is of higher 
importance to man than that of a mere industrial and commercial 
utility. Here is one of nature’s great laboratories for the genera- 
tion of pure air and the maintenance of stable atmospheric condi- 
tions. Its many cool lakes and babbling brooks form a natural 
resting and invigorating ground. It comprises the highest land 
in the State, ranging from one thousand to five thousand feet in 
elevation. 
In this elevated domain are upward of two thousand lakes and 
lakelets abounding in clear cold waters—the ideal land of the 
