
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 

THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
DESTRUCTION OF GAME COUNTRY BY 
BEAVER RIVER DAM 
HE construction of a dam on the Beaver 
River, Herkimer county, marks the passing 
of one of the best game sections in the Adi- 
rondacks. Approximately thirteen hundred acres 
of virgin timber is included in the tract to be 
flooded, besides a considerable portion of the 
beautiful Little Rapids Park, once owned by Dr. 
Trudeau and a few other congenial spirits. Smaller 
holdings have also been bought up but it is safe 
to say that the greater and more valuable part of 
the land taken over belonged originally to the 
state. 
The building of this dam seems in many respects 
a direct encroachment on the conservative policy 
relative to the forests of New York. The purpose 
of the project is to store water for use in generat- 
ing power for pulp mills on the Moose and Black 
Rivers. Those involved in the enterprise are loud 
in declaring that the public will benefit thereby, 
but just where the benefit comes in is somewhat 
of a puzzle. As a matter of fact the public have 
known little or nothing about the undertaking until 
the work was well under way, and some thousand 
lumbermen busy at the task of denudation. 
Carloads of unpeeled pulpwood are being shipped 
daily from Beaver River station. The hardwood 
and brush is being burned. Everything points to 
the fact that the work is being hurried along as 
fast as possible. 
The question arises in the mind of every person 
interested in the preservation of the Adirondacks 
not only as a game park but as a playground for 
the people—is the Beaver River dam being built 
for purely economic reasons in the matter of power 
generation, or is it simply an excuse for taking 
over thousands of cords of pulp to feed the in- 
satiable maw of pulp mills? It is a known fact 
that the evaporation in the section to be flooded 
will undoubtedly be greater than the supply of 
water. Feeding the artificial lake besides the 
Beaver River are North Branch, West Branch and 
Twitchell Creek—streams that are not equal to the 
demand to be laid upon them. An original nine 
foot raise on the sight of the old flow was advanced 
to nineteen feet when it was found that the former 
would not flood back far enough to necessitate the 
cutting of the thirteen hundred acres of virgin 
timber. 
Anyone at all familiar with the Adirondacks re- 
alizes that the water stored by its forests is of 
infinite value to the future. Without forests there 
can be no permanent supply of water. China is 
a living example of what the ruthless devastation 
of forests will do to a country. 
The one way to insure a water supply for the 
future—and water spells prosperity—is to stop 
cutting trees. Destruction of such character as 
is at present being executed by private interests 
on the Beaver River, is pregnant with sinister 
significance. 
Primarily the forests and water supply of the 
Adirondacks belong to the people. Some day the 
great reservoir of its lakes will be tapped for pub- 
lic need, but it should be done by the state and 
wanton flooding should be eliminated as far as pos- 
sible. In a recent interesting article on the Forest 
Policy of New York, Professor Hosmer of Cornell 
University has included certain recommendations 
advanced by the New York Section of the Society 
of American Foresters for the preservation of this 
region. Of these, the one of greatest importance 
is that ‘‘the organization of the Conservation Com- 
mission shall be so altered as to put the Conserva- 
tion Commission under non-political control.” 
The taking over of state land for other purposes 
than use by the state is greatly to be deplored. The 
public was not given a chance to say whether the 
Beaver River dam should or should not be con- 
structed. In consequence they have lost seventy- 
five hundred acres of beautiful territory famous 
for its hunting and fishing, besides a valuable area 
of timberland. 
The present policy towards the Adirondacks 
seems adequately summed up in a statement quoted 
in Professor Hosmer’s article that ‘‘what we need 
now is preservation and not utilization.” 
SUMMER BROOKS 
UMMER waters are witching places and 
S sounds up and along stream are wonderful 
things, and when man thinks of sounds along 
his favorite water he muses in terms of melody 
pleasant to the ear. Even the harsh caw of the 
crow of croak of a heron may strike a musical 
value when heard in the seclusion of dense woods 
and running waters. 
The sounds of the brook are as inconstant as the 
forest winds—in early morning when lost in cold 
mists and dripping moisture, at midday when 
tranced hours hold sway, in sable nights when the 
world is sheer mystery—in blue days and gray the 
ears throb and ring as the various keys of the 
song echo and dim along the gray forest aisles. 
Who, having heard, can forget the brook tum- 
bling over the stones, all its tones and all its chords 
singing in the night? Who has heard a bird sing- 
ing in the silence of quivering dusk a song so 
quaint and fragmentary of such a plaintive air it 
sets one dreaming unaware? How many thrill 
at the passionate anthem of evergreen boughs—in 
the momentary lull how soft and muffled the mur- 
murous gurgle of waters like low spoken laughter, 
and then the rising winds that waft the croon to 
depths and’ magic shadows. Offtimes the patient 
angler thinks he hears the far sound and echo of 
Menalcas’s song, perhaps the faint pipes of Cory- 
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