The funds provided at that time were utterly insufficient to permit much field work of a precise or detailed character in the study of dam sites or flowage lines, but it appears that a broad general reconnoissance was made, visiting nearly every noteworthy lake or pond upon the Hudson head waters. Other than the topographic surveys arranged for with the U. S. Geological Survey by the State paying half the cost, and which appear to have absorbed half the entire appropriation, the new surveys in detail for this storage study appear to have comprised only the following: 1. A line of levels was run from which a water power profile of the Hudson was prepared, covering the sixty-five miles from Glens Falls to North River village. 2. Surveys and studies for a large dam at Tumblehead Falls on the Schroon river and for another dam and reservoir at Indian Lake were made with some detail, though based on no sufficient test pits or borings. The outlines of Piseco Lake were surveyed at present level and also for a higher flow line. 3. Dam sites were partially explored and estimates of cost prepared, on Boreas Pond, Cheney Pond, Piseco Lake, at Starbuckville, at Hadley and on fifteen sites for smaller reservoirs tributary to the Schroon. The chief conclusions of Mr. Rafter were: 1. That by constructing a reservoir system wholly to the south of the Benedict system given in table on page 63, having a total storage volume of 41,593,000,000 cubic feet, estimated to, cost $2,606,559, the mean monthly flow at Glen Falls with the river thus regulated, need not fall below 3,000 to 3,600 'cubic feet per second, whereas it then at times fell as low as 900 cubic feet per second under natural conditions. This storage volume to be provided was equivalent to a depth of 12.5 inches of run-off on the entire watershed directly controlled, of which about 1.5 inches was for use of the log drivers. 2. He fixed upon 4,500 cubic feet per second flow as the proper minimum at which the river should be maintained, for reasons connected with the navigation, and concluded that the regulated flow with the proposed total storage of 41,593 million cubic feet, would maintain at all times not less than 4,500 cubic feet per " second of 24-hour flow at Mechanicville, or 1.0 cubic foot per second per square mile. 3. Mr. Rafter concluded from some comparison of gage heights that this increase in flow, due to storage, would increase the low water depth in the Hudson river at Albany about 1.5 feet. 4. Mr. Rafter estimated roughly that by thus regulating the flow through storage reservoirs, the maximum possible continuous power of the Hudson river, if each fall all the way from Troy to North River village was developed, would be increased by 114,020 horse power to 174,020 horse power twenty-four hours per day, whereas the same falls under present conditions would yield in time of low water only 60,000 horse power. He thus reckoned that the power available in the dryest months of the ordinary year would be increased nearly threefold. 5. Attention was called to the opportunity for a large succession of power developments of moderate size along the upper Hudson from Thurman to North River village, the river having a total fall of 450 feet in twenty-five miles. This would require the relocation of the Adirondack railroad higher on the side of the valley. 6. A new census of the Hudson river power developments was presented, showing a total turbine capacity of 43,481 net horse power, a most remarkable increase from the 12,894 found by the census made by Prof. Porter in 1882. 7. It was suggested that during the season while storage was accumulating, a constant flow equivalent to 0.45 cubic feet per square mile of drainage was to be left flowing in the streams, but the detailed estimates showing just how this was to be done and meanwhile fill these very large reservoirs are not presented in the report. On a close analytic study, this report of 1895 is found to contain very far from complete information on the water storage problem, and nothing more than a reconnoissance could properly be expected from so small an appropriation. It is made plain in the report, upon close study, that the above estimate of cost of $2,606,559 for 41,593 million cubic feet of storage was very crude, and that the data for it were few. Mr. Rafter also called attention to the possible opportunity for a great reservoir above Conklingville, by the erection of a dam twenty feet high, thinking it probable 4,000,000,000 cubic feet of storage could thereby be obtained, but said as there was no definite data at hand as to the effect of twenty-five feet rise on the valley, it is considered best on the whole to leave this reservoir for the present out of the account." The chief permanent results of this survey of 1895 are: 1. The earlier securing of accurate topographic maps of the Adirondack region. 2. The publication of carefully prepared tables of the daily flow of the river. 3. The securing of the data which led to the construction of the Indian Lake dam in 1898. INCOMPLETENESS OF DATA SECURED IN 1895-6. Since these figures upon storage, taken from the reports of 1895 and 1896 have been often quoted without making plain the scant data on which they rest, it is worth while to briefly show how they were derived. For ten drainage areas, mostly small and near the head waters, it was assumed in the absence of definite surveys but after some reconnoissance in the field, that dams at the lake outlets could be built sufficient to store the total run-off of the storage months, December to May inclusive, in the minimum year, which was estimated as equivalent to a depth of 13.5 inches over the entire watershed. Taking Mr. Rafter's data, the lakes and the drainage areas proposed to be utilized for storage are as follows: Lakes Rich, Morris, Newcomb and Goodenow. Cedar river. . . Sundry small areas on Sacandaga with definite data lacking, estimated at.... Total... 38 square miles 50 If the yearly flow from all these could be controlled by dams so as to store the depth of run-off estimated at 13.5 inches over this entire area of 458 square miles, the volume would be equivalent to 458 x 5,280 x 5,280 x 135=14,364 million cubic feet. In the absence of definite information, Mr. Rafter thought that the average cost of all of this storage in the ten areas of lakes given above, would not exceed $76.48 per million cubic feet stored. This $76.48 was found by estimating in some detail the total cost for a series of sixteen reservoirs on the Schroon system and by dividing the total estimate of $1,172,500 thus found, by their total estimated storage of 15,330,000 cubic feet. It was by this very crude method that the cost for the ten reservoirs on upper Hudson and upper Sacandaga proposed built to hold 14,364,000,000 cubic feet, was estimated at $1,098,559. On Boreas and Cheney Ponds, it was estimated that 1,111 million cubic feet of storage would cost On Indian Lake it was estimated, apparently from surveys in detail, that 4,468 million cubic feet of storage would cost.. On Piseco Lake, it was estimated that 1,725 million cubic feet of storage, which apparently would raise the lake level about 12.7 feet, would cost.. At Tumblehead Falls, it was estimated from surveys that a high masonry dam could be built which would raise the level of Schroon Lake about thirty-one feet above its present level of 807 feet above the sea or when the reservoir was filled to maximum flood depth with two feet flowing over the crest of the dam, the water would be raised to contour 840. $118,000 120,000 70,000 At Tumblehead Falls the water level would be raised fifty-nine feet, and the proposed dam would impound the run-off from 502 square miles. The vast reservoir formed by this dam would flood also Brant Lake and Paradox Lake. It was estimated that the total volume thus stored including the thirty-one feet of extra depth on Schroon Lake at Tumblehead Falls, would be nearly 16 billion cubic feet, and the expenses attendant on flooding this vast territory was then estimated at It was also proposed to construct a dam on the main Hudson river just above the present highway bridge between Hadley and Luzerne, where it was assumed, apparently from very meagre surveys, that there could be impounded 4,000 million cubic feet at a cost of..... The totals of the above estimates were: Storage 41,593 million cubic feet. $840,000 360,000 $2,606,559 So far as can be judged from the report, it appears that data used for estimating the volumes of the proposed great Schroon reservoir were chiefly the contours at twenty foot intervals, as determined by the ordinary topographic methods of the U. S. geological survey, and not very precise because of the scale being so small and the points actually located being so few. In the case of the proposed Hadley reservoir, the area to be flooded is so long and narrow that topography mapped on so small a scale as one mile to the inch, could not be expected to give a close approximation, but the topographic maps of the U. S. geological survey as well as our own partial surveys of 1907 indicate only about one-half as great a volume as assumed by Mr. Rafter. His estimates for dams at Hadley, Tumblehead Falls, Indian Lake, Piseco Lake and for Boreas and Cheney Ponds, so far as |