August, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
441 
Journal, a periodical which is doing good work not 
only in forestry but in game protection as well, Jack 
Miner says: “At the present moment there are at 
least two hundred and fifty beautiful white swans 
and thousands of wild geese and ducks resting within 
three miles of where we are now sitting; all con- 
tented and resting under the sand bar along the 
north shore of Lake Erie where twenty years ago it 
was hardly safe for a sandpiper to alight. On the 
Kingsville Game Reservation, bobwhite, the farmer’s 
most loyal and beneficial friend, can be heard plainly 
in increased numbers. Better education and a pub- 
lic sentiment, brought about by the Essex County 
Wild Life Conservation Association, has made this 
wonderful change possible.” 
This local sentiment and these local conditions are, 
we believe, due almost entirely to the enthusiasm 
■and the faithful work of Mr. Jack Miner. For his 
particular locality he has performed a great public 
service. 
A like service might be performed by a thousand 
men for a thousand other localities in North Amer- 
ica. The work of a generation of men devoted to 
wild life protection has prepared the public mind 
to feel a growing interest in this matter, and never 
before have so many people been working at it as 
are working at it today. These numbers should con- 
tinually increase, and the benefits of protection 
should be more constantly taught — by word of 
mouth, by letter, and by means of printer’s ink. 
It is well to point out now and then the accom- 
plishments of a single man — a plain citizen — in this 
important field. 
OKEFINOKEE SWAMP 
Q KEFINOKEE Swamp, “with no counterpart 
^ anywhere in the world, and containing numer- 
ous features of extraordinary interest which call for 
permanent national preservation,” according to the 
Biological Survey of the United States Department 
of Agriculture, is threatened by commercial exploita- 
tion which will destroy its primeval conditions and 
remove the last of the three great swamps of the 
Atlantic seaboard. 
Attention to the danger confronting this “greatest 
natural wonder” of Georgia is called by a writer of 
the Biological Survey, United States Department of 
Agriculture, in Natural History (the Journal of the 
American Museum of Natural History). He states 
however, that the Okefinokee Society, which was or- 
ganized in 1918 through local sentiment in Waycross, 
Ga., a city near the swamp, is taking steps to pre- 
serve the region for posterity. The Okefinokee So- 
ciety, which is prepared to undertake the raising of 
private funds, plans, after securing the area for a 
reservation, to present it to the United States Gov- 
ernment in order that it may be administered and 
nerpetuated as a national wild-life refuge. 
The Okefinokee covers nearly 700 square miles in 
the southeastern part of Georgia. “Among the fresh- 
water swamps east of the Mississippi,” says the 
Biological Survey writer, “it is exceeded in size only 
by the Everglades; and in the richness of its his- 
torical and literary associations, in the marvelous 
beauty and charm of its diversified scenery, and in 
its extraordinary interest as a faunal and floral area. 
Okefinokee Swamp is unique. It has no counterpart 
anywhere in the world. 
There are several respects in which the swamp 
would make a particularly useful and valuable reser- 
vation under Federal or other auspices. It is a 
refuge for some exceptionally rare and interesting 
forms of animal life. It is an important wintering 
ground for large numbers of migratory waterfowl. 
It still contains, in spite of extensive lumbering op- 
erations, some five hundred square miles of diversi- 
fied territory in an absolutely primeval state, offer- 
ing to naturalists unsurpassed opportunities for 
faunal and ecological studies. Moreover, it has a 
distinct esthetic value, the extraordinary beauty of 
its scenery making a strong appeal to all lovers of 
nature who have been privileged to visit it.” 
While the Okefinokee has enjoyed historical and 
literary renown for over a century, its biological 
features have been systematically investigated by 
men of scientific training only within a comparative- 
ly few years. These men believe that in the eastern 
United States there is no area of equal extent which 
affords such exceptional opportunities for the study 
of animal life in a primeval environment. With the 
rapid destruction of natural conditions over the en- 
tire country, it is of the utmost importance from the 
standpoint of science that at least a few areas here 
and there be preserved in their original state. 
RIVERS OF THE NORTH 
r\ NLY those who have tracked a boat up one of the 
^ swift-running rivers of the North, day after 
day, imbibing the ceaseless roar of the waters and 
steadfastly laboring with titanic effort to overcome 
the almost insurmountable obstacles along the shore, 
have any real conception of the glory of outdoor life. 
It is on such occasions that one comes to know and 
to revere the giant forces of nature. Just so long as 
a few feet are gained, a few sweepers overcome or a 
bad piece of rapids negotiated, just so long will the 
light of conquest lure one on to fresh exertions until 
the long ascent is accomplished and that soul satisfy- 
ing rest at the end assured. 
Perhaps it is the wide visions of uncharted moun- 
tain ranges that loom gigantic from the mists of 
early morn or the far sight of snow patches glisten- 
ing in the noonday sun that bring such sweet content 
to the weary toiler as he breasts the cold current of 
the stream and bends his back to the tug of the line ; 
or maybe it is the ever present song of the river that 
murmurs all day like a crooning lullaby. Ever at 
dawn it falls faintly on the ears of the awakening 
voyager and brings with it a sense of the eternal 
poise that abides in nature; in the hush of noontime, 
when the sun bathes the landscape with effulgent 
light and the wilderness people are resting in the 
grateful shade of the forests, the gentle lapping of 
the water breeds a calm content; but it is at even- 
tide that the song of the river speaks to the man who 
is resting on its banks with a more potent voice. 
Then he catches a note that has been lost to him dur- 
ing the restless struggle of the day. It is a note of 
immortality, without which all things in nature are 
but as dust — the tone of divine assurance that all is 
well with the world. 
In the fret of every day life it is good to think of 
the rivers of the North — those lonely streams that 
have been pouring for untold centuries through the 
pathless regions of the wilderness and to dwell upon 
the majesty of their power. Their sources are in 
the glacier-crowned mountain regions and the mighty 
flood of water that they bear sweeps on forever. 
Those who have breasted their icy current have 
caught the contagion of magnetic power that lies in 
them and forever after can know only of the strength 
that overcomes and of the courage that endures. 
