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Dragging operations in Lake Placid lake for the body of Mrs. Mabel Smith Douglass, 56, former New Jersey Women’s College dean, believed drowned near Pulpit Rock last Thursday, are expected to continue through the rest of the week. If no trace of the body is found by that time, the search of the lake waters will doubtless be abandoned, although close watch will be kept during the daytime hours of the waters below Pulpit Rock in the hope that the body may rise to the surface of its own accord.

The plan to employ a deep sea diver from New York to do down in the 250 feet of cold water to search the lake bottom has been virtually abandoned. So large an area of the uneven lake bottom would have to be covered that the task is considered practically hopeless. No one knows just where the missing educator went down, although the fact that her overturned rowboat was found near Pulpit Rock has served to center the search there.

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War on rats

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Many Lake Placid hunters will find some of their fall shooting considerably curtailed if the work of ridding the local dump of a large part of its rat population progresses as favorably as expected.

A three-week campaign against the rodents is now underway, Supervisor Willis Wells and board of health officials having arranged to have the rats fed a special formula, said to be the most potent in its effects.

It is confidently expected that fewer rats will this fall migrate to the village from the dump. Cold weather is said to cause them to seek warmer quarters. The number of rodents at the village dumping ground is said to have decreased substantially since this powerful new formula has been used.

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Burial chapel

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Work will begin at once on construction of a foundation and basement for a vault and burial chapel at the North Elba Cemetery, Supervisor Willis Wells announced.

Estimated cost of the chapel is $5,000. Necessary funds for the construction of the basement have been supplied by a donation of $1,500 from the Lake Placid Grange. Plans for financing the rest of the structure are being matured.

The chapel, when finished, can be used for funeral services and will be especially welcome in the winter.

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Winter forecast

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An early and severe old-fashioned winter is freely predicted by old residents of this section of the Adirondacks. The point to the long, dry summer, which, they say, is practically certain of being followed by deep snows coming early and lasting well into the spring of 1934.

Not for years have the Adirondacks experienced such a dry season as the one just coming to a close. Many storage reservoirs, particularly in the southern and eastern sections, are at their lowest mark in years.

The extreme dryness of the summer caused the leaves of many maple trees in the mountains to begin turning a month ago from green to the yellow and reds not usually seen until late September or early October.

The forest is decked out in its brilliant colors now, and motorists passing through the Adirondacks marvel at the panorama of color nature has painted on the mountainside and valley.

Lack of rain throughout the summer made the maple leaves smaller than in ordinary years and caused them to ripen more quickly. Some of the maple leaves have already begun to fall.