expend a part of this difference in a better preparation of the reservoir site and in more ample and permanent structures.

Moreover, the State can doubtless find means to properly assess upon each of the owners of the thirteen or fifteen power sites along the Hudson a fair rental value for the increase in flow by which the power at each plant would be practically doubled, while it is probably impossible to form a combination of all the mill owners in which each would co-operate properly and contribute his fair share toward the full success of this large work.

Again, under private ownership and control the building and emptying of the more shallow reservoir proposed, in which vast swamp areas would be uncovered at the end of a summer drought, might be a distinct disadvantage to the surrounding communities of Batchellerville, Northville, Northampton, etc.; while on the other hand the larger and deeper reservoir proposed to be built by the State, with its steeper banks and well prepared bed, with projecting stumps removed, and with its sandy beaches, and with its sluiceways so arranged that by no possibility could the water be drawn so low as to uncover the swamp bottom, would furnish an added attraction to these beautiful villages.

I have no doubt that this great artificial lake could be made such an attractive feature in the landscape that summer cottagers would seek its shores as they do the shores of Canada Lake near Gloversville, or the shores of Sebago Lake in Maine, or Lake Winnepiscogee in New Hampshire, both of which have dams at their outlets and serve as storage reservoirs for water power. Sebago is about 25 per cent. larger than the proposed Sacandaga lake, has about half its drainage area, and its extreme rise and fall under storage control is about 10 feet.

In Indian Lake reservoir, built by a corporation understood to comprise in part the same interests that now seek control of the Sacandaga, we have an example of methods of clearing a reservoir bed that were regarded by the power interests as satisfactory and were a vast improvement over earlier methods; yet the protruding stumps of this reservoir bed are a menace to the safety of pleasure boating, and in general appearance when partially empty, the bed and margins of Indian Lake are a wretched failure in comparison with what might be.

Early action by the State is required lest this most favorable of all present opportunities for the development of a great power by the State for public use near populous communities be lost.

THE IMMEDIATE PROJECT OF PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT. The immediate purpose of the Sacandaga development proposed by the Hudson River Electric Power Company, which has been in part set forth in a recent application to the State Public Service Commission for authority to make a bond issue for purposes of construction, is to build a timber dam about 20 feet high about four miles farther up the stream than the best dam site. This location is adopted in order to avoid flooding small pieces

of State land comprised in the Forest Preserve. The dam is to be kept low to avoid flooding the railroad which runs from Gloversville to Northville.

It is proposed for an indefinite period to use the stored water solely for increasing the flow of the Hudson at the present mill and power sites all the way along from Palmers Falls to Mechanicville, in time of drought.

. For this purpose the sluice gates at the proposed dam would probably remain closed during the storage months, from December to May or June inclusive, and would be opened only for a total of about 100 days, mostly in July, August and September, but sometimes also opened in case of a winter drought, thus treating this storage somewhat according to the methods now followed at Indian Lake.

No prospect of founding a new industrial community is presented in this private development.

Under the Company's plans it is proposed to develop at some future time a power-house on the outlet from the proposed Sacandaga reservoir, by means of a secondary dam, located some three miles westerly from Hadley and under conditions whereby only about half as great a fall would be obtained as under the plans which I have submitted for State development. This electrical power so developed would presumably nearly all be transmitted to Albany and other cities for lease to public service corporations, or for taking the place of power otherwise generated from coal.

In other words, the principal effect of this second and final stage of this private development would be to use this water power for replacing power already developed, whereas if developed under State control it is proposed that preference should be given, by favoring rates, to the local development of new industries and to the founding of one or more new industrial communities, thus adding far more to the taxable resources of the State. The State project being on a larger scale, the ultimate population set at work by the Sacandaga water could be of more benefit to the State.

SAFETY OF TEMPORARY SACANDAGA DAM PROPOSED BY HUDSON RIVER POWER OWNERS.

It is worthy of consideration in connection with a proposal to build a temporary, timber overfall-dam, that the river bed at Conklingville and below and probably all along for some miles, runs over a buried gorge filled more than a hundred feet deep with sand, and that this condition in view of the volume stored, demands very great precautions in type and foundation of the main dam. I see no reason yet to doubt the possibility of building a safe dam, but it cannot properly be a cheap type of dam. The United States Census Report of 1880 calls attention to the repeated carrying out of dams on the Sacandaga between Conklingville and Hadley, because of the sand foundation, and of all the various dams and water power developments that have in times past existed along this stream, only one remains, and that is broken out at one end.

GENESEE STORAGE AND POWER INCREASE.

The second study, undertaken at the request of the county supervisors of Monroe county, relating to the building of a great storage reservoir on the Genesee above Portage, partly for the purpose of flood control, partly for power, where it is found that a dam, power-house and all appurtenant works can be built entirely outside the limits of the park presented to the State by Mr. Letchworth, and without substantial injury to its scenic beauty.

It appears that after reserving for scenic purposes at the Genesee Falls & volume greater than the present midsummer flow, the

water stored in this great reservoir in the flood season, could generate power for electrical transmission sufficient to deliver about 32,000 24-hour 7-day horse power throughout the year, or about 80,000 horse power if concentrated during ordinary working hours with a 40 per cent, load factor, at Rochester, Mt. Morris and other localities in that part of the State, or for establishing a new industrial center in the neighborhood of the power-house, beside adding at the several water plants now in operation within the city of Rochester, an average of about 8,700 24-hour 7-day horse power, or about 22,000 horse power if used in ordinary working hours under a 40 per cent. load factor during the six dry months of the average year. In the dryest month it would in all add to them an average of about 13,500 of 24-hour 7-day horse power.

If the dam were built and the power-house with its long tunnel and other expensive structures delayed for some years, and the reservoir used meanwhile solely for reinforcing the low water flow at Rochester for purposes of power development, sewage dilution and flood control, it would add in the dryest month of the average year nearly 32,000 horse power of 24-hour power at the existing developed power sites, and the average addition during the six dry months of the average year would be nearly 20,000 horse power of 24-hour power, which if used mainly in working hours, or under 40 per cent. load factor, would add about 50,000 horse power.

PROMISING SITES NOT YET STUDIED.

Elsewhere than upon the Sacandaga and the Genesee, there are many inviting opportunities for investigations. The sites for water storage for power upon the Raquette river, the Black river, the Oswego river and certain other Adirondack streams give promise of developments that would add greatly to the resources of the State, and the Sacandaga is only one of several great reservoir sites on the Hudson which are each well worthy of development for increasing the power at the present dams, all the way from Palmer's Falls to Troy. At the heads of the "Finger Lakes" and on the tributaries of the Delaware, there are said to be opportunities well worth investigating.

POSSIBLE BETTER USE OF THE NIAGARA RESOURces. Niagara, too, offers a most important field for further investigation. While for the time being a halt has been called in the diversion of water from Niagara, the Canadian power movement appears to be gaining such strength and to be obtaining such a hold on public sentiment, that it is not improbable that further developments will come, and that each further diversion for power upon the Canadian side will prompt a corresponding diversion upon the American side.

It is proper that the people of New York should have available for reference a broad impartial study of the Niagara situation, with designs for obtaining the utmost value from each gallon of water diverted and for combining benefits to navigation with benefits from power transmission, rather than that projects of further development should be left wholly to questions of first cost, or to convenience or caprice of private parties, or that control should follow the chance ownership of lands along the line of development.

At certain of the recent Niagara power plants, nearly half of the total fall available between the head of the falls and Lewiston is wasted, and a given quantity of water, therefore, performs only half the work that it might perform. Under commercial conditions, it has been necessary to obtain the quickest possible return for the smallest immediate outlay.

A reconnoissance indicates that it is entirely feasible to make all further power developments at Niagara part of a more comprehensive plan in which deep draft steamship navigation on American territory should be provided for through a great power canal that would permit the water for power to be utilized under substantially the entire fall of 316 feet.

This can be worked out in entire harmony with and be helpful toward the development of the proposed deep waterway front the great lakes to the ocean by way of the Hudson and New York city.