
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. 
A STATE SUPREME COURT DECISION 
ONCERNING the right of companies, or in- 
dividuals, to discharge waste matter into 
streams, the following has been brought to 
our attention: 
NUISANCE—POLLUTION OF STREAM 
Complainants sought an injunction against de- 
fendants to prevent the discharge by them of acid 
mine water into Indian Creek. Defendants claimed 
that they had a right of drainage which was a 
property right and that they could not be deprived 
of this right without due process of law and with- 
out compensation. On this stream, at a point be- 
low defendants’ mines, one of complainants, The 
Mountain Water Supply Company, had constructed 
a dam and a reservoir which supplied water to 
75,000 people for domestic use and to the Penn- 
Sylvania Railroad Company. The court below 
ruled that the Mountain Company did not possess 
the power of eminent domain, that the several 
water companies had not appropriated the waters 
of Indian Creek for public use, and that as the 
waters had not been legally so appropriated there 
was no public interest which warranted the inter- 
vention of the commonwealth. 
Held: That defendants had no right of any kind 
to drain their mine waters into the stream consid- 
ering the public use which was made of its waters 
and that their so doing constituted a nuisance 
which should be restrained. The lower court was 
in error in holding that to constitute a public use 
of the water it must be taken under the right of 
eminent domain. The water was devoted to public 
use in that it went to the public through the water 
companies and to the Railroad Company in connec- 
tion with the public service which it performed. 
The title acquired by defendants gave them no 
property rights in the waters of the stream save 
those which pertained to riparian ownership, 
which did not include the right to pollute the 
stream. 
Pennsylvania Railroad Co. vs. Sagamore Coal Co. 
et al (8608). 
Supreme Court of Penna. Decided Sept. 29, 
1924. 
NATURE AND MAN 
HERE is a strange allurement in the call of 
nature. No one knows the symbol of beauty 
abroad the landscape, the unwritten chronicle 
of the throb of things, the high points, the 
shadows. Imagine the stir of somnolent lilies of 
a gray dawn, the whirr of wings of night moths, 
the glow and scent and phantasy when the ar- 
rangement of seasons are an eternal lure to man. 
A great movement is taking place. If you doubt, 
go into the byways and woods and listen to the 
sounds of earth’s hidden voices. 
The sap oozes it, the wild rain chants it in a 
monotone, the wind, lifting a melodic wail among 
the leaves of young oaks, takes up the song and 
repeats it with courage, and all the movement in 
the grasses seems aching to express it ere it slip 
into the shadows of the past. As constant as the 
wash of tidal rivers is the call and whisper and the 
soft, itinerant, half-awakened suggestion that is as 
old as granite and hills. Under such impulse man 
shall prowl and hunt the depths and pinnacles. 
Man hears the call of kinship in the voices and 
primitive sounds, and the echoes make him a part 
of it all. The gifts of nature are offered as a part 
of his inheritance, a portion of life, and so he uses 
his senses to fathom the beauty of nature’s inter- 
rogative mystery. 
Luxuriant in deed and achievement, rife with 
dreams and memory, alive with music and poetry 
and life at the crest of things, nature lures man. 
He lures, ponders, and cannot forget. He reads 
the way of the woods and fen, the hills and 
streams, and it sinks strangely into the heart. In 
soft syllables of beauty, in a rhythm of phantasy, 
with spells and moods that glide like song through 
the passing hours, nature speaks intimately. In 
every emotion, in every utterance of running 
streams and singing birds, the rustle of night 
leaves and soft patter of summer rains, she draws 
man to her breast from the witchery of strange 
gods and his release is known by his joy, love, ap- 
preciation of a new treasure. 
KLAMATH LAKE BIRD REFUGE LIKELY 
TO BE RESTORED 
ROF. ELWOOD MEAD, Commissioner of 
Reclamation in the Interior Department, has 
recently informed Dr. E. W. Nelson, Chief of 
the Biological Survey of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, that as soon as water is avail- 
able it will be turned into the Lower Klamath Lake, 
in California and Oregon, for the purpose of re- 
storing conditions favorable to a multitude of mi- 
gratory wild fowl such as occupied this lake before 
it was drained. The restoration of this lake has 
been actively championed by the National Associa- 
tion of Audubon Societies, especially through W. 
L. Finley, and by others in the western United 
States, as well as by the Biological Survey. 
This area was drained in 1917 with the idea that 
it would supply a large acreage valuable for agri- 
culture. As a matter of fact the drainage accom- 
plished only the utter destruction of one of the 
most wonderful breeding places for wild fowl in 
Page 728 
