164 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



The subjoined reports for the years 1866 and 1867, made 

 by Col. James Worrall, the Commissioner appointed by the 

 Governor of Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 30th 

 1866, contain information of much interest to the citizens 

 of the state. His description of the fishway at the Colum- 1 

 bia dam, will show the reader how such means of passage 

 for the shad are constructed, and how the fish find their 

 way up. He also explains the reason of the delay in build- 

 ing fishways at other dams on the Susquehanna, as pro- 

 vided for under the above Act. For these reasons I have 

 deemed it advisable to give both of his reports in full : 



I. 



"HARBISBURG, PA., December 3d 1866. 

 " DEAR SIR : In fulfilling the duties devolved upon me 

 under the act of 30th March 1866, ' relating to the pass- 

 age offish along the Susquehanna and certain of its tribu- 

 taries,' I have the honor to report as follows : 



in which legislative committees often receive applications from peo- 

 ple who petition for the control of particular streams, or creeks, or 

 ponds, for the purpose of raising fish or oysters in a systematic and 

 economical way. At once the members begin to ask whether this 

 control would not abrogate some grant of the Pequot Indians to 

 Fear-the-Lord Crowell, in the year 1639; or some ancient right 

 of the inhabitants of Harwich Centre to dig one peck of quahogs 

 per man on that particular ground. 



" These same committee-men would not treat a petition for a 

 railroad or a cotton-mill in this way, and simply because they 

 believe in the success of a railroad or of a mill, but they do not 

 believe in and do not know about the success of fish or oysters." 



