HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



31 



As regards the water power of New York, the Tenth Census of 

 the United States (1880), Vols. XVI and XVII, gives in detail 

 the statistics of the main water powers as they existed in 1882. 

 Many of these show considerable increase at the present time, 

 although the extensions are for the most part similar to those 

 described in the census report, and hence present few additional 

 features of interest. Several of the recent: plants, however, are 

 on quite different lines both as to their scope and as to the method 

 of development adopted. It has therefore seemed more important 

 to describe a number of the new plants, illustrating them by 

 photographs, and to give the main facts of the great storage proj- 

 ects of the Black, Genesee, Hudson, Salmon, Schroon, Wallkill 

 and other rivers, than to spend time on small and relatively unim- 

 portant powers which are already sufficiently described. 



The peculiar relation of the State to water power development 

 on the main rivers of New York is an interesting subject for dis- 

 cussion. Owing to the circumstances of the early settlement and 

 the development of the canal system, the State has assumed owner- 

 ship of the inland waters, or, at any rate, of all streams used as 

 feeders to the canals. This assumption has worked injustice to 

 riparian owners, and is at present a bar in the way of the full 

 development of important streams by private enterprise. 



Moreover, New York is preeminent in position by virtue of the 

 fact that she is the only State resting on the ocean and at the 

 same time grounded on the Great Lakes. The Hudson river is 

 a navigable estuary for one hundred and fifty miles inland, and 

 the depression of the Mohawk valley, together with the valley of 

 Oswego river, extends, with slight elevation, from the northern 

 end of this estuary west to Lake Ontario. It was inevitable, 

 therefore, that from time immemorial the Mohawk valley should 

 be the highway, along which passed the commerce between the 

 east and the west. If the proposed deep waterway connecting 

 the Great Lakes with the ocean is ever constructed, nature has 

 from the beginning predestined by two possible routes, both of 

 which pass through the State of New York — one by way of Oswego- 

 Mohawk valleys to tidewater and the other by way of St Lawrence- 



