Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy, j 
Six Months, $1.50. ( 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 26 , 1909 . 
J VOU LXXII,—No. 26. 
I No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE OLD GOVERNMENT CAMELS. 
An event that excited much public interest in 
times just before the Civil War is recalled by' 
a California press dispatch just published. This 
states that two camels were recently seen on 
the desert near Quartzie, .Arizona, said to be 
two of the old Government camels brought to 
this country by the War Department “about 
i860.” 
In November and December, 1904, Forest and 
Stream printed a long account of the importa¬ 
tion of camels by the United States Government. 
Some of the important facts concerning this im¬ 
portation are these. 
John R. Bartlett, having recommended the use 
of camels for pack animals in the Southwest, 
Lieut. Porter—afterward Admiral Porter—was 
sent in the store ship Supply to the Levant to 
procure some, and in May, 1856, landed at 
Indianola, Texas, thirty-four camels in good 
condition. They soon proved their efficiency for 
the work demanded of them, but after a time 
the officer in whose charge they were, not find¬ 
ing any work for them to do, they were neg¬ 
lected and at length were ordered sold by the 
War Department. This was done in 1863. 
In i860 or 1861 a company was formed in San 
Francisco for the purpose of importing camels 
from Asia. They brought about twenty to Cali¬ 
fornia, and for some time the animals were 
employed in packing salt from a marsh in 
Esmeralda county, in Nevada, to the Washoe 
Silver Mills. In 1865 Prof. Brewer, of Yale 
College, then connected with the California Geo¬ 
logical Survey, saw some of them in use near 
Virginia City. In 1876 they were still in use. 
Bancroft, the historian, states that in 1876 the 
Nevada camels were taken to Arizona. 
The breaking out of the war interfered with 
any further interest in camels by the Govern¬ 
ment. Our correspondent Cabia Blanco wrote 
in 1904 that twenty years earlier he had seen 
these camels in Western New Mexico and Ari¬ 
zona, where they were owned by Mexicans and 
used as pack animals. 
Years ago accounts of camels seen on the 
desert, or of camels killed by hunters, often ap¬ 
peared in the papers of the Southwest. In May, 
1903, the San Antonio Express spoke of having 
observed a camel branded LL S. in a show there. 
As the camel is believed to seldom attain an 
age of forty years, it is probable that all those 
once owned by the Government are now dead. 
It is a pity that the e.xperiment so well begun 
could not have been carried further. There was 
a period of twenty or twenty-five years in the 
Southwest when a swift, strong beast of burden 
like the camel would have been most useful. 
THE CAPE COD CANAL. 
Ground was broken on Tuesday of this week 
for the Cape Cod canal which, when completed, 
will greatly change the conditions affecting coast¬ 
wise traffic between all of the ports of the North 
Atlantic. But while commerce will be benefited 
through the material reduction in the distance 
between Maine and Massachusetts ports and all 
of those to the southwest and south, pleasure 
cruising will be rendered safer than it is at the 
present time. 
The canal will connect Barnstable and Buz¬ 
zard’s Bay and will be about twelves miles in 
length, counting the approaches. It will be 160 
feet in width at the bottom, 250 feet at the top, 
with a depth of 25 feet at low tide and 30 or 
more at the flood. The distance between New 
York and Boston will be shortened by about 
seventy-five miles over the Vineyard Sound 
route, and by nearly twice that distance over 
the outside route around Cape Cod. There will 
be no locks in the canal. 
It is estimated that eight years’ time will be 
required to complete the work, after which the 
yachtsmen may sail or steam through Long 
Island Sound and eastward with much greater 
comfort and in comparative safety, in fair 
weather and foul. 
This project has long been under considera¬ 
tion. Yachtsmen have worked diligently for it 
with success, but their greatest efforts have been 
exerted since the smaller classes of power boats 
have become so popular. To these the dreaded 
Cape is a dead line, only to be negotiated when 
the conditions are perfect. 
DEATH OF COLONEL FOX. 
William Freeman Fox died on June 16 -at 
his home in Albany after a long illness. His 
age was sixty-nine years. For nearly a quarter 
of a century Colonel Fox was superintendent 
of forests of the State of New York, and in 
that time he had not only witnessed the growth 
of the forest preserve idea, but had been an 
important factor in bringing under State con¬ 
trol or ownership the immense territory spread¬ 
ing across the blue ridges of the Adirondack 
and Catskill Mountains. Besides this he did 
much toward disseminating information on 
forest planting, care and management, and his 
influence was not confined to his own State. 
His illustrated reports, published as a part of 
the annual reports of the Forest, Fish and Game 
Commission, were widely read and his instruc¬ 
tions followed by foresters, great and small. 
Colonel Fox was born at Ballston Spa and 
educated at Schenectady. He graduated from 
Lffiion College in time to take part in the Civil 
War, in which he served as captain, major and 
lieutenant-colonel of the 107th Regiment, N. Y. 
V. At the time of his death he was president 
of the Twelfth Army Corps and of the Chi Psi 
.Alumni Association. Mrs. Fox and a son sur¬ 
vive him. 
The large quantity of news matter demand¬ 
ing space in our columns this week compels us 
again to defer printing J. L. D.’s notes on sal¬ 
mon and sea trout fishing in the Forteau River 
of Labrador. Few anglers have investigated the 
salmon rivers of Newfoundland and Labrador 
so thoroughly as have J. L. D. and “Silver Mit¬ 
chell,” his companion, on many journeys. Both 
have frequently pointed out in these columns 
the influence on the run of salmon of the nets 
that all but close the moufhs of these streams. 
What the salmon rivers of that region would 
be like if these nets were kept out can easily 
be understood by anglers who have fished there 
frequently during recent years. It seems, how¬ 
ever, that not until public sentiment is aroused 
will there be a change for the better, although 
steam patrol vessels, if employed, would com¬ 
mand the respect of men to whom the laws are 
a dead letter. 
Germany, the home of the summer festival 
and the mother of famous riflemen, is paying 
her 'respects to the German-American marks¬ 
men who, 200 strong, sailed from this port three 
weeks ago and are now shooting for prizes and 
fraternizing with the sons of their ancestors’ 
boyhood friends. To these sturdy descendants 
of Americanized Germans it is not all of shoot¬ 
ing to win trophies. Their wives and sisters 
take active part in the festivals of which the 
target shooting is a feature, and not a few of 
the women are experts with the rifle. The 
journey of the marksmen is in itself a tribute 
to the growing demand for healthful recrea¬ 
tion. That one organization can muster two 
hundred men for a long vacation is remark¬ 
able, but these are men who, while they work 
hard and earnestly when at home, realize the 
necessity for a little play now and then. 
It is reported that the Japanese authorities 
contemplate taking measures to control the local 
whale fisheries, and to prevent the reckless de¬ 
struction of whales as at present. The total 
catch of whales for the year ending August, 
1907, amounted to 1,790 carcasses. The flesh of 
whales is in great demand in some Japanese 
provinces. 
