TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor.. Engineering expenses for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1910... Table of contracts completed during the fiscal year ended September 30, 1910. REPORT. To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York: I have the honor to present herewith my second annual report as State Engineer and Surveyor. The people of the state have entrusted to the State Engineer and Surveyor a work which makes his department one of the most important in the State government; they have directed him to expend for them a vast sum of money in carrying out an enterprise which, in the light of results attending similar improvements in Continental Europe, as well as along our own Great Lakes, seems destined to be a most important factor in our material prosperity. The making of this report, therefore, becomes, not an imposed duty, but a welcomed opportunity of telling to you and through you to the public what is being accomplished in this great undertaking. Indeed, I may add that throughout my administration I have sought for occasions to keep the people informed concerning this work which they have ordered. Although the most important work now engaging the attention of the State Engineer and Surveyor is the enlargement of the State canals, this enterprise by no means comprises the whole of his duties. The Constitution of the State and the Revised Statutes impose on him certain fixed duties and at each session of the Legislature numerous laws are passed which add to the obligation. In brief, these duties may be described as consisting of the engineering operations required in the making of surveys and preliminary investigations and in the designing of certain State public works and the supervising of their construction and mainte nance. The several constitutional and permanent statutory boards of which the State Engineer and Surveyor is a member are the following: Canal Board, which controls the construction and maintenance of the canals; Commissioners of the Land Office, who control the sale and purchase of State lands and the granting of lands under water; Board of State Canvassers, which canvasses the returns of elections, and the Board of Equalization of Assessment, charged with equalizing the assessment of State taxes among the several counties. From the nature of this office, matters of a technical character that come before these boards are referred to the State Engineer and Surveyor for investigation and report. Besides these boards the Legislature often creates commissions for some particular work of investigation, and of these the State Engineer and Surveyor is sometimes a member. There is one such body now in existence the Barge Canal Terminal Commission created by the Legislature in 1909 and continued for a second year at the succeeding legislative session. The work of this commission, of which the State Engineer and Surveyor is chairman, has demanded a large share of his time, but the subject is well worthy of all the labor expended upon it, both by all the members of the commission and by the many public-spirited citizens who have become interested, since the State's policy in regard to adequate terminal facilities for its great shipping interests is a question of supreme moment to our commercial supremacy, although probably but a few of the people realize its importance. Because of the nature of the State Engineer's office there are certain duties that have come to be his, by legislative enactment or otherwise, in addition to those which emanate from his relation to the State waterways and his membership in the several boards and commissions. Without going into detail, the most important of these may be enumerated as follows: Growing out of his supervision of canal construction, he is accustomed to make surveys and maps for the Attorney-General and to present expert technical evidence in the defense of suits before the Court of Claims; he is also required to examine and pass upon bridge plans presented by electric or steam railways or others for use in crossing the canals. In connection with his membership in the Land Office Commission, he is entrusted with the sale of lands at public auction, having a Land Bureau in his department, which is the custodian of many original maps and descriptions of Colonial and early State surveys. Because he is the engineer for State works in general, he is charged with the direction of the geological survey of the state in coöperation with the United States Geological Survey, in |