HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



531 



was also built on the outlet of Cranberry lake, which is still stand- 

 ing. This lake has a water area of 12.8 square miles. 



While it is true that these acts recognize the principle of the 

 mill acts, still, if called upon to defend them, their originators 

 would probably hold the improvement of navigation and the check- 

 ing of freshets as the real matter of public utility. 



Although we have no general mill act in New York State, we 

 nevertheless reap the benefit on the Hudson river of the mill act 

 in the neighboring State of Massachusetts. Thanks to State lines, 

 we receive this benefit without cost to anybody in the State of 

 Xew York. 1 



The greatest development of these waterpower reservoirs is 

 probably in Khode Island and Connecticut, although they are 

 common in Maine, Xew Hampshire and Massachusetts. 



The absence of such legislation in this State is to be traced 

 largely to the growth of the idea here that the navigation interests 

 are paramount to those of manufacturing, whence it has resulted 

 that the important streams of this State have been mostly re- 

 served for the benefit of the internal navigation system, although 

 the showing herein made, as to the value of the water of the 

 Hudson river for waterpower in comparison with its value for 

 the use of navigation, may well lead us to consider whether after 

 all the manufacturing interests of this State are not quite as 

 worthy of consideration as those of the neighboring New England 

 States. We ought not to forget that, aside from carrying grain 

 for producers outside of this State, the chief business of the 

 canals must come from fostering manufacturing interests within 

 the State itself. 



State ownership of the Hudson river and its effect in restricting 

 the development of waterpower. Titles to lands bordering on 

 and lying under the beds of large rivers like the Hudson have 

 been somewhat complicated in this State by the peculiar circum- 

 stances of its early settlement and history. Thus, all original 

 titles in the lower and middle Hudson valley, as well as in the 

 most of the Mohawk valley, are derived from the laws of Holland 

 as they existed early in the seventeenth century. Under the Dutch 

 law the riparian proprietors owned neither the beds nor banks 



^or account of reservoirs in Massachusetts see page 265. 



