HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



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We also have five sheets either in or in the vicinity of the Hudson 

 river catchment area, namely, Fort Ann, North Creek, Glens Falls, 

 Cambridge and Schuylerville. The totals for these five sheets are 

 virgin forest, 0; culled area, 311.45 square miles; cleared area, 

 719.0 square miles; water area, 32.25 square miles; total area of 

 the five sheets, 1087.4 square miles. In a portion of the region 

 covered by these sheets the tendency is for many of the hard, stony 

 hill farms to revert to forest conditions. We may assume, there- 

 fore, that throughout the Adirondack region the forest area is 

 slowly increasing. 



As a summation of this discussion it may be concluded, taking 

 into account the erection by the State of New York of the Adiron- 

 dack park, as well as the tendency to abandon stony farms, that on 

 the whole the conditions governing the runoff of streams on Black 

 river are improving. The same thing is true of the Hudson and 

 Mohawk rivers or of a 113^ other stream issuing from the State 

 forests. Deductions, therefore, based on what has happened in 

 the past may be expected to be realized in the future. 



The main water power developments of Neiv York. In the State 

 of New York there are seven large towns, at all of which the 

 original basis of the development was water power, namely, Lock- 

 port, Rochester, Oswego, Watertown, Little Falls, Glens Falls 

 and Cohoes. The recent development of the city of Niagara Falls 

 is also due purely to the water power of Niagara river, but this 

 was not the original basis of growth. The attraction of the falls 

 as a great natural curiosity gave this place its original impulse. 

 There are also a number of smaller places in the State where 

 water power has developed towns, but the foregoing are the larger 

 ones. Moreover, so strong has been the impulse of the water 

 power that several of these towns have developed at locations 

 where there were serious adverse conditions. At Lockport there 

 is no water supply within reasonable distance. Even in 1904, 

 aside from a few polluted wells, the water supply for the town 

 is still taken from Erie canal, which receives the sewage of over 



