It was the interstate importance of the White Mountain 

 region which from the outset furnished the main reason for 

 Federal ownership. While the interstate character of the 

 benefits aimed at was conspicuously in evidence in the matter 

 of stream protection, it was by no means confined to this 

 form of public benefit. 



As a recreational region, the White Mountains, it was 

 pointed out, have a large value for all the Northeastern and 

 many of the Central States, forming as they do a resort for 

 great numbers of visitors from Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, 

 Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities and towns of 

 the populous territory east of the Mississippi. Similarly, the 

 forests of the White Mountains are industrially important 

 as sources of timber supply for manufacturing establishments 

 in the States surrounding New Hampshire, whose products 

 go into all parts of the country. But of outstanding signifi- 

 cance was the influence of the White Mountain region upon 

 the industrial and economic life of the New England States 

 through its peculiar relation to their rivers, which are both 

 arteries of commerce and sources of energy through water- 

 power development. 



Back from the ocean, for myriads of years, the streams have 

 been cutting, in their age-long task of remaking the face of the 

 earth, towards this central elevation from which the waters 

 drain east, west, north, and south. Upon the mountain flanks 

 their tentacles rest like a network of shining threads, deepening 

 their channels and bearing slowly seaward what short -visioned 

 man sometimes calls the everlasting hills. The White Moun- 

 tain uplift is a central citadel into which the drainage system 

 of northern New England is pressing from all sides. Maine, 

 Massachusetts, and Connecticut use the waters which New 

 Hampshire feeds into the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Merri- 

 mac, and the Connecticut. All four have their principal im- 

 portance and use beyond the borders of New Hampshire. Pro- 

 tection of these streams against irregular flows and silting 

 through erosion was manifestly a matter of interstate con- 

 cern. 



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