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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



1893, primeval forest, while the balance was largely lumbered 

 forest — that is to say, forest with the soft woods removed. Prob- 

 ably the proportion of primeval forest is somewhat smaller at the 

 present time, and may be taken at 50 per cent. For the whole 

 4387 square miles, we may say that the forest protection is now 

 equivalent to oU 2 inches additional runoff due to the cover. If, 

 therefore, the entire Adirondack park were reforested with dense 

 primeval forests, we might expect an addition of an inch and a 

 half per year in the runoff from this area. 



On reference to table No. 61, Runoff Data of Hudson River for 

 the Water Years 1888-1901, Inclusive, it will be seen that the 

 average runoff per year for fourteen years is 23.27 inches. The 

 maximum runoff, of 33.08 inches, occurred in 1892, and the mini- 

 mum, of 17.40 inches, in 1895. With dense, primeval forests over 

 the entire area of the Adirondack park we may expect an average 

 of about 24.75 inches annual runoff, or the increase of about 

 per cent over the present runoff — an amount of water which, dis- 

 tributed over the entire year, as it will be, is inappreciable in its 

 influence on the flow of streams. 



In the Catskill region the soft woods have long since disap- 

 peared and the hard-wood forest is mostly open, presenting less 

 satisfactory protection than does the Adirondack hard-wood 

 forest. It is doubtful if the open hard-wood forests of the Cats- 

 kill region are equivalent, in protective effect, to over 25 per cent 

 to 30 per cent of a dense, primeval forest of spruce, pine, balsam 

 and hemlock, or we may say that the present runoff of the Cats- 

 kill streams is only an inch and a half more than it would be 

 if the region were substantially deforested. The effect, therefore, 

 of reforesting with soft woods would be to increase the flow of 

 streams annually about Sy 2 inches in depth over the area actually 

 reforested. But the reforested area is so small a proportion of 

 the whole area that the total effect on the flow of any given stream 

 is so slight as to be scarcely perceptible. This proposition is reit- 

 erated because in the extensive discussions of this question which 

 have recently appeared it has been tacitly assumed that the refor- 

 estation of the Adirondack park would have so great an effect on 



