hat in this portion of the
stream. In the river at the pumping station of the East Jersey Water
Company there was completed a somewhat interesting cycle of changes,
described in the following extract of a letter from Mr. G. Waldo Smith,
chief engineer for the New York aqueduct commissioners, and formerly
engineer and superintendent of the East Jersey Water Company:

"No better illustration of the old adage, 'The river claims its own,'
could be given than that offered by the action of Passaic River at
Little Falls, New Jersey, at the point where the works of the East
Jersey Water Company have been constructed. These works were built
between 1897 and 1900. In the course of the work the river channel for a
distance of several thousand feet down stream from the power house was
drained and improved, so that the head on the wheels at the ordinary
stage of the river was increased about 6 feet. From the time this
improvement was completed to March, 1902, through the action of the
ordinary flow of water and moderate floods, this head had been reduced
about one-third. The great freshet of March, 1902, cut off about another
third, and the recent flood has completed the cycle and entirely wiped
out the benefit due to the river improvement, and the water at the
pumping station stands now at almost precisely the same level that it
stood before any improvements were undertaken. New bars were formed in
approximately the same location as they existed before, and, so far as
possible, except for the changed conditions brought about by the
building of the power station, the condition of the river is not
dissimilar to that existing when the work was commenced.

"In this connection it might be well to state that a New Jersey drainage
commission, in blasting out a channel below the Little Falls dam some
years ago, dumped a considerable portion of the excavation in the deep
water under the Morris Canal viaduct.

"The action of the two great floods, March, 1902, and October, 1903, has
washed a large part of this material out of this deep hole and piled it
up in the river about 300 feet below where the river widens, and reduces
the force of the current.

"I have made no estimate of the amount of material deposited in the
river, but offhand should say that it would be at least 100,000 yards."

_Paterson._--The flood district in the city of Paterson (see Pl. III)
comprised 196 acres and involved the temporary obstruction of 10.3 miles
of stre