INFLUENCE OF THE FORESTS ON WATER POWER. 19 



Lumbering has been carried on extensively in this northern Con- 

 necticut region for a great many years, and especially during the past 

 ten years, when the slopes of the Presidential and Franconia ranges 

 have been cut for pulp, and many of them burned over, exposing the 

 bare rock. In 1880 it was estimated that the annual drive down the 

 Connecticut amounted to more than 60,000,000 board feet, and that 

 from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 board feet were sawed annually in the 

 mill at Mclndoes Falls. This is about the present output, which has 

 probably been fairly steady during the intervening twenty-eight 

 years. It appears therefore, that more than two billion feet have 

 been removed from this part of the watershed since 1880. In the 

 northern townships saw logs have been cut more than pulpwood, 

 which leaves the forest in good growing condition, with a forest cover 

 sufficient to protect the moisture in the soil. The situation is very 

 different in the high mountain townships that have been stripped for 

 pulp. Under the present cut the stand of timber deteriorates every 

 year over a large part of the forested area, and is disappearing rap- 

 idly on the high slopes, where clean cutting is the only method used. 



Below Mclndoes Falls the Connecticut has long reaches of smooth 

 water, broken at seven points by water powers of high efficiency and 

 value. These are indicated in the following tabulation: 



Table 10. — Water power on the Connecticut River below the Passumpsic River. 



Horsepower available, 

 Locality. 10 months, average year. 



Mclndoes Falls 1, 570 



Dodges Falls 1,570 



Wilder 7,160 



Sum Tiers Falls 4,-000 



Bellows Falls 17, 720 



Turners Falls 31, 950 



Holyoke 35, 100 



Windsor Locks , . . 21, 130 



Total 120, 290 



About one-half of this 120,000 horsepower is utilized. In low 

 water of a dry year the efficiency is reduced nearly one-half. In sev- 

 eral places the works are so constructed as not to utilize the total 

 available power, as at Windsor Locks, above Hartford, where the 

 dam was put in about seventy-five years ago for the purpose of aid- 

 ing navigation. The margin of power between that available on the 

 wheels and that used daily in the mills is sometimes small, as at Hol- 

 yoke, where the mills are many. Low water in a dry year at such 

 places causes no little anxiety. The slightest rise above is reported 

 at Holyoke, in order that supplies of water to the mills below may not 

 be cut off unnecessarily. At Holyoke there are upwards of 20 mills 

 engaged in the manufacture of paper, several cotton mills, using about 



[Cir. 168] 



