ment to find practical confirmation of the truth of the large stories which are told about it. But I can believe them, for its source and surroundings are exactly adapted to make it a great gathering place for trout during the hottest of the summer months.

In these Stony brook ponds we have our first illustration of the effect of the high dam which has recently been built at Setting Pole rapids. The water was full eight feet above its natural level

an advantage only in this, that it enabled us to make an almost "straight wake" for the Raquette, instead of following the indescribably tortuous channel of the brook.

Near the point where this brook strikes the Raquette there has resided, solitary and alone, for many years, a man well-known to the frequenters of these woods. His house is primitive but quite spacious, and is surrounded by forty or fifty acres of well cleared land, of more than average productiveness for this region. Although living thus remote from neighbors and civilization, he is of more than ordinary intelligence, of a philosophical and metaphysical turn of mind, keeps closely posted in regard to trade, commerce, politics and general science, is and has been for many years an attentive reader, is hospitable, courteous and eccentric. He is, withal, an ardent lover of music, and before time and hard work had robbed his digits of their

pliability, nothing gave him greater pleasure than to entertain his guests by exhibitions of his skill upon his favorite instrument, the violin. He is the trusted agent of several large land-owners, has more ready cash (rumor says) than some of his employers, and does more good with it than many who make far greater parade of their wealth and benevolence. And yet he has neither watch nor clock in his domicile. When the question was put to him: "Mr. Calkins, without a timepiece of any kind in the house, how do you know when to get up?" "Oh," said he, "I always get up when it stops raining❞—not a bad rule, certainly, for a gentleman whose business does not require him to imperil his health by exposing it to the weather. I think I discovered in my last visit that the old gentleman was less fond of his solitary life than formerly, and yearned anxiously for the society which he enjoyed in his youth and which is so essential to one's comfort in old age. When he does leave these woods, he will be missed, for he has been a pleasant companion to a great many anglers, who appreciated his character and peculiarities.

The row down the Raquette, with its overflowed banks and strong current, was extremely pleasant. There was this drawback, however, that the high water robbed the river, in its immediate surroundings, of much of its beauty. We missed many old

landmarks, and because of the overflow, passed a great many points where, before this piece of artificial vandalism (the high dam meaning) had worked its work, we were wont to find our best fishing. But after-success made ample amends for our present disappointment. On the 27th of May it was our good fortune to strike "the rapids" (so called) near "Big Ox-bow," - famous as a trout haunt for a few days in the Spring, while the fish are passing up stream from the lower waters. We were apprehensive that the unparalleled high water had destroyed this favorite resort, as it had a hundred others. But our fears were unfounded. I never knew the trout so abundant or so full of life. In two hours we killed twenty fish, which weighed 31 lbs.-one of them three pounds and a half, plump. We could have quadrupled our catch during the afternoon had we been so disposed. But we could not use them, and we had no desire to imitate the bad example of too many anglers, who take fish as long as they will rise, even though they are obliged to leave them on the shore to rot. Many tons are thus destroyed every year by those who lack the "quality of mercy" which is inherent in the true angler. There should be a stringent law against such shameful waste. It is as deserving of the pillory as sheep-stealing. Others subsequently had great success at this same point; but

I have heard of no two hours' fishing which averaged so roundly.

Greatly pleased with our success at “the rapids,” but desiring to push on to other pleasantly remembered resorts, we were soon at Tupper's Lakeone of the most beautiful and majestic lakes in the wilderness. But there was no temptation to remain long upon its immediate borders. The high water had so affected the currents that many of the places I had been used to fish were no longer gathering places for trout. Hence, instead of, as usual, passing two or three days at these old camping grounds, and at the "high rocks" and swift waters in the neighborhood, we passed them by with a single cast or two, to one of which a pickerel responded, a sigh and a smothered malediction (in the spirit of Uncle Toby), and pushed on past "Peter's Rocks" to "Setting Pole Rapids," where I have always had finer sport than at any other point in the wilderness. I was not at all sanguine now, because I did not know what effect the dam had had upon the depth and flow of the water below it. But at the first cast my doubts were dissipated. The response was prompt and vigorous, and for a week I enjoyed the luxury of an angler's paradise, of which more anon.

I first visited these rapids fifteen years ago. Some of them who were with me then have gone

to their rest; among them my earliest and trusted guide, who knew more of woodcraft and of angling than any man I ever met. But George Morse now sleeps his last sleep in the Soldier's Cemetery at Washington, where his resting-place is marked by a simple head-stone, reared to his memory by his old friend, Gen. Spinner, who was "one of us" during this first visit, and whose genial humor and happy ways rendered that particular excursion, extending from Boonville to Potsdam, ever-memorable. The General seldom fished during the trip, except for minnows as bait for others. His delight was to gather ferns and leaves and mosses and shells and geological specimens with which to adorn his home cabinet. And this habit, with all his exhausting labors as treasurer of the United States, he has kept up from that day to this. Those who visit his private office in the treasury building at Washington will find its walls lined with beautiful clusters of these treasures of nature, all of his own gathering. They mark the simple tastes and habits of the man through whose hands hundreds of thousands of millions have passed during the last twelve years without a single dollar adhering unlawfully to his fingers. Would he be what he is in the responsible office he holds had he not first acquired the simple habits of an honest angler? His jealous care of his responsible trust now pre