20 days. That complaint was signed by 150 citizens of Buffalo, and out of those three were customers of the Cataract Power & Conduit Co.

Mr. BROWN. Who were the others?

Mr. BARTON. I don't know.

Mr. BROWN. They were not consumers?

Mr. BARTON. Not consumers.

Mr. BROWN. Customers of the lighting company?

Mr. BARTON. I think they were.

A MEMBER. May I ask if any of the stockholders of your company are interested in that company?

Mr. BARTON. I can't say, but I think some persons there are interested in both companies.

Mr. DIFENDERFER. They are interested in all of those companies, are they not? Possibly that is your answer to there not being a gentleman's agreement. That may be your answer to that proposition. It isn't necessary.

Mr. BARTON. Why should there be a gentleman's agreement? Is there anything that is secret? The whole thing is open and above board. There is a lighting company doing business there. They were there, and there is no reason why we should duplicate their investment.

Mr. CLINE. Then those who have these other two companiesmembers of your company that have an interest in these other two companies you speak of-also share three different profits, do they not?

Mr. BARTON. I presume that is the case, but three different profits. each of which represents a different investment.

Mr. BROWN. Has the Niagara Falls Power Co. or the Cataract Co. any controlling interest in this electrical company, the lighting company?

Mr. BARTON. None whatever.

Mr. BROWN. The common interest is simply the result of accident that one stockholder may hold some stock in both.

Mr. BARTON. It came about in this way: When the Niagara Falls Power Co. was organizing a distributing company in Buffalo, the lighting company was asked whether it wanted to buy all this power that we were going to furnish to Buffalo, and it decided it wouldn't take the risk. Its directors thought it wasn't wise to involve the property of their shareholders in that project. But one or two of the gentlemen interested in the lighting company took the matter up and undertook to organize a local distributing company in Buffalo,

and that was done.

Mr. BROWN. State, Mr. Barton, what has been the dividends paid by the Niagara Falls Power Co. down to the present time.

Mr. BARTON. In 22 years the company has paid eight dividends of 2 per cent each.

Mr. DIFENDERFER. What are the salaries of the gentlemen who are interested in this-then we will come nearer the profit?

Mr. BARTON. They are inadequate, I should say. They are on record in the files of the public-service commission, if you are interested.

The CHAIRMAN. I received a telegram from the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook. If there is no objection it will be

read and incorporated in the hearings. The telegram reads as follows:

Hon. WILLIAM SULZER,

NEW YORK, January 25, 1912.

Chairman House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, D. C.: May I urge upon you favorable consideration of the joint resolution for the extension of the provisions of the Burton Act for the preservation of Niagara Falls? I believe that Congress should take this action for three reasons: First, Congress has already decreed that Niagara Falls shall be preserved by the Federal Government; second, the report of the Army engineers has shown that the Falls are already injured and are in danger of further injury; third, the Burton Act has proved itself an effective instrument for the protection of Niagara.

LYMAN ABBOTT,

STATEMENT OF PROF. JAMES HENRY HARPER.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harper, you may proceed.

Prof. HARPER. I do not represent any interest in this large question, except the 90,000,000 people in the United States.

I want to contribute, if I can, a little light to the subject of the preservation of the Falls. As a preliminary proposition, I believe you have some pictures here showing the run-off of the Falls at the time when it was the lowest rainfall within the lifetime of any individual present. I want to make that very prominent.

We are passing just at the present time the crest of a drought greater than that within the knowledge of any man living here or likely to be. These periods of minimum rainfall occur largely and affect largely the interior, and consequently have a very pertinent effect upon the flow of the Niagara Falls, because it is entirely the drainage of the table-lands in the territory back in the interior that the Falls depends upon for their flow.

With that I have been preparing some figures on this, the history of the rainfall and the drought, which will be published, I suppose, but I want to state that we have just passed or are passing that period of three years of maximum drought. This is the crest of that period, and that will not occur again within the lifetime of any individual here.

The CHAIRMAN. Has the rainfall, so far as you have been able to find out, increased or diminished along the Great Lakes for the past 60 years?

Prof. HARPER. The rainfall has necessarily decreased because we have cut away nature's sponge, the diminution of the timber supply around that area has been the largest factor, and the prime factor in the diminution, if there has been any, the run-off at the Falls. I have no interest in them, nor do I hold any briefs for a power company of any kind.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it your observation that the Great Lakes are receding?

Prof. HARPER. Not at all. The rainfall period will determine the volume of run-off and the very fact that there are some large impoundments of water and large power development which 20 years ago were not in evidence at all in that territory, has contributed materially to a bettering or steadying this flow of Niagara. As a matter of fact the power development that Niagara now has contributes to the flow of Niagara. The power development and the

impoundment of water in those areas has helped to relieve the situation that the cutting off the timber has brought about, and the more power development, the larger impoundment of water taken care of at the low stages. In other words, the larger power development that takes place back of Niagara Falls the steadier will be the flow of Niagara Falls. It is only during the low period that people are talking about the preservation of the Falls, or anyone else is interested. The run-off wouldn't be reduced in inches appreciably if there were to be another 20,000 feet of water taken there.

Mr. SHARP. Do you claim that the cutting away of timber diminishes the rainfall?

Prof. HARPER. Certainly not, only the rainfall, not only the natural precipitation, but it immediately puts that water on its way. Mr. SHARP. I understand that, but in what way does it diminish the actual precipitation, the cutting away of the timber?

Prof. HARPER. That would call for quite an extended observation, but in simple terms anything that destroys the sponge, nature's sponge for the retention of that rainfall, affects the run-off.

Mr. SHARP. I understand that, but what

Prof. HARPER. The cutting off in timber has brought about a lessening in the carrying power that is within the basin, we will say, of these Great Lakes, and a lessening of the precipitation, and it has thrown the precipitation closer to the coast line. Our precipitation here in Washington will be sustained and at times in New York during the crest of this drought the precipitation in New York was phenomenal, but that was the result of the precipitation being carried farther inland in drought periods. Nature proved that. During a number of years the precipitation has been nearer to the coast line. And that is a sort of a balance. Nature provides for that.

Mr. SHARP. Does it diminish the precipitation from the clouds, the cutting away of the forests? I can understand how the forest acts as a sponge and retains the moisture and that it doesn't flow away so rapidly, but I would like to know how it interferes with the amount of precipitation, because I understood that there is a good deal of controversy on that subject, and I would like to get your view of just why that action takes place.

Prof. HARPER. There is a wide difference of opinion even among the scientists on that subject, but I might give you an opportunity to speculate a little bit on that subject by stating some conclusions that I have arrived at myself in dynamics, which govern primarily the periods of greater and lesser precipitation.

The sun, which is our center of energy, is a large magnetic mass, not in combustion, and bearing no relation to the ancients of the fiery furnace, but simply a magnetic mass. That source of energy is magnetic, entering our sphere and causing the phenomena of lightning and the extreme local phenomena of caloric energy. The caloric energy determines the rainfall and the growth of plant and animal life. That is the basis of some research work that has been going on on my part for over a third of a century, and the basis of the prediction on my part that we were to pass through a drought period by reason of the occurrence of the sun spots. I made some mathematical calculations of that.

I had a photograph made of the sun spots and discovered that we would have a diminution, possibly, mathematically determined, per

haps as high as 5 per cent of the sun's energy. That brings about a drought period. That controls the whole operation.

Mr. SHARP. So the existence of sun spots has to do with disturbances of the atmosphere?

Prof. HARPER. Not only the atmosphere, but seismic, pestilence, drought, famine, and others.

Mr. SHARP. The sun spots, you think, were the primary cause? Prof. HARPER. Yes, sir; and some others.

Mr. SHARP. What relation has the lessening of the forests to the production of sun spots?

Prof. HARPER. Now you have got a subject that is large enough for

Mr. SHARP. I studied it myself for 30 years, and I think I know something about that question, and I was curious to get your views on the same.

Prof. HARPER. You had got enough to make deductions that any good mathematician could make and our good astronomers. Scientists have really accepted that theory.

Mr. SHARP. Professor, I don't think I will take issue with you on the connection of the sun spots with the phenomena that we see here, but I have long been of the opinion that the mere cutting away of the forests has very little to do, if anything, with the actual precipitation and the moisture; not with the holding it back, but that the cutting away of the timber lessens the precipitation and the moisture it would seem to be rather a far-fetched conclusion. Prof. HARPER. It does really lessen it

Mr. SHARP. There is some doubt that it has anything to do with it at all.

Prof. HARPER. Not to my mind. I think if you follow my—

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harper, get down from sun spots to this mundane sphere, and tell us what you have to say about this legislation.

Prof. HARPER. I thought that statement to you, gentlemen, that the relation of the scenic beauty of the Falls to the present employment of water for power which has been carefully determined by very good and competent engineers-the run-off can be had without any apparent effect upon the Falls, and as I have endeavored to show, and which is deducible to mathematical terms at the present, there has been an extreme diminution of rainfall on the table-lands, and the scenic beauty of the Falls during the year just past hasn't been materially affected. The few thousand or more feet run-off that is called for by the bill wouldn't have any effect at all.

I desire to speak further upon the proposition of the impoundment of water. George Washington had a plan for impounding in large basins the water of the Potomac River, and he proposed slack-water navigation for two purposes-for power and navigation and for control-it is one of the most intelligent briefs on the subject that we have got, including the best of our engineers for a hundred years since.

The CHAIRMAN. George was a great man.

The committee will now take a recess until 2 o'clock, and the hearings will be closed this afternoon. The committee has been very patient and courteous to all of the gentlemen who have come here, and we have tried to give you as much latitude as possible to get

your view on the legislation which is before the committee. This committee is very busy, and we must close these hearings this afternoon. We will go on from 2 o'clock until 5, three hours, and I hope you gentlemen who want to be heard will get together and agree about how much time you want.

Mr. CURLEY. I was going to ask that a part of the report compiled by Dr. McLaughlin in his report, on page 47, be included in his remarks, that portion relative to distribution of typhoid fever in the State of New York.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF TYPHOID FEVER IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

In the cities of New York State with good water supplies the typhoid death rate is low, as shown by the following table:

On the other hand, those cities using unfiltered water from contaminated rivers have a high typhoid rate:

Thereupon, at 12 o'clock, the committee took a recess until 2

o'clock p. m.