
AUG. 17, 1907.] 
249 



moved which could pollute the water. The reser- 
voir will be twelve miles long and about two 
and one-half miles wide, with an average depth 
of over fifty feet. It will hold one hundred and 
seventy billion gallons of water, and quite a re- 
spectable modern naval engagement could be con- 
ducted upon its surface. 
The city is bound .to maintain a well graded 
drive around the reservoir, and about midway 
of its length a bridge is to loop from island to 
island across it. That the lake itself is going 
to be an adornment to the Catskills cannot be 
doubted. And when. the water and the shore 
line have had time to adjust their leafy border 
it will be one more beautiful spot on earth to 
look upon. But the Ashokan dam, massive as 
it may seem to one standing below it, will be 
surrounded by mountains which can easily make 
it appear impudent. 
The water is to be flowed to New York city 
through an aqueduct seventeen and one-half 
feet in diameter and one hundred and eight miles 
long. This tube is expected to supply two hun- 
dred and fifty million gallons daily, and will be 
capable of handling seven hundred million gal- 
ons daily, when all the proposed reservoirs are 
constructed. At Scarsdale it will pour its flood 
into enormous filtration beds before delivering 
the water for consumption in the city. When 
it is remembered what an uneven country lies 
between the Catskills and New York it is plain 
to see that the aqueduct is going to have 
troubles of its own. It must tunnel through 
mountains, bridge ravines, wallow in swamps, 
and in one instance duck its head some six hun- 
dred feet in crawling under the Hudson River. 
This great depth is necessary in order to find 
suitable rock formation. By wriggling through 
the different boroughs it is eventually expected 
to reach Staten Island, via Brooklyn and the 
Narrows. While the materials and construction 
methods used will vary at different points, ac- 
cording to the obstacles to be overcome, investi- 
gation has shown that the entire length of the 
aqueduct will be liberally supplied with technical 
engineering terms. For this reason more defi- 
nite description of the tube is left to those better 
prepared to administer the dose. 
In point of expense the undertaking is emi- 
nently respectable. It will be a very important 
member of that family of enterprises which in- 
clude the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal and 
their like. Something in the neighborhood of 
a hundred million dollars is expected to be 

COEDS Si its eae Ae 
sR MB Masi etc 

BOICE’S FARM, NEAR WEST SHOKAN, 
Showing the character of the plateau described by Mr. Sherwood, where the upper limits of the reservoir 
will be. All of this land will be under water. 
needed for so much of the work as has been de- 
scribed, and when all the branches have been 
developed fifty or sixty millions more may be 
added. 
However, when the engineers have had their 
glory and-the ‘contractors have had their money, 
the net result to New York city will be a seem- 
ingly inexhaustible supply of most excellent 
water. 
So much for the engineering and economic 
sides of the enterprise. Now let us see what 
effect it will have upon the angling. 
The Esopus rises in the vicinity of Pine Hill, 
somewhat to the southwest of the center of the 
Catskills, and flows in a southeasterly direction 
until it leaves the mountains and the tableland 
already referred to, a distance of about thirty 
miles. Here the creek turns north, nearly 
paralleling the Hudson for some fifteen miles 
before it flows into that river.. Of its. entire 
Jlength the first twenty-five miles have given the 
stream its trout fishing reputation. 
Starting as a small brook it rapidly absorbs 
other streams until when it reaches Boiceville 

eighteen miles from its source—it has grown to 
THE ESOPUS ABOVE THE DUGWAY, 
The big stone in the central background marks the upper limit of the water when the reservoir fills. 
At the 
time the picture was made the creek was very low, but trout were seen everywhere. 
The railroad tracks will be removed, 
a width of possibly one hundred. and fifty feet 
In this short jour- 
at ordinary stages of water. 
ney it about 
J has fallen from an 
seventeen hundred feet down to six hundred feet. 
The fall is accomplished by a .curiously even 
series of rifts and pools, averaging perhaps four 
The pools as 
elevation of 
rifts and four pools to the mile. 
a rule are not deep, excepting right at the foot 
of the rifts, and possibly by many would not be 
considered pools. They are more like a cessa- 
tion of the rapids, being stretches often five or 
six hundred feet long, through which the water 
flows swiftly, but with little fall. The 
bottoms of these flat -stretches are thickly laid 
with boulders, varying ° in from a bushel 
basket up to an ice wagon, many of them rising 
For a stream to fall 
very 
size 
well abové the surface. 
eleven hundred feet in eighteen miles without 
a single cascade, and be choked by boulders the 
entire distance, makes it about as ideal trout 
water as could be imagined. To one who knows 
this section of the stream it 
There is a 
an absence of 
When 
if he 
presents certain 
characteristics all its own. deter- 
mined steady rush to it, with 
spectacular falls or quiet resting places. 
one sees what like smooth water, 
steps into it, he finds that same strong current. 
When the Ashokan dam is completed at Olive 
Bridge—eight years hence—the water will back 
up in the Esopus about six miles to Boiceville. 
However, of the eight streams having trout fish- 
ing reputations of their own. which empty into 
the Esopus, all but one join it above Boiceville, 
not be affected by the reservoir. 
looks 
and so will 
Among these streams are Stony Clove, Wood- 
land Creek, Bushnellsille, Big Indian Creek (on 
some maps marked as headwaters of the Esopus) 
and Beaverkill (not to be confused with the 
famous Sullivan county Beaverkill). Nor does 
the belt of land, one thousand feet. wide, which 
New York city will own as a protection around 
The one well 
below 
its reservoir, affect these streams. 
known creek, flowing into the 
Boiceville, is the Bushkill. This juncture is made 
two’ miles down from the head of the reservoir, 
and the Bushkill loses a half mile of its fishing. 
Esopus 

