XXVIII REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The Mississippi River, with its tributaries and subtributaries, as laid 

 down on the larger maps of the United States, exhibits over 120,000 

 miles of combined lengths,* which we know falls much within the extent 

 of waters available for food-fishes ; and, were the system of the Chinese 

 adopted, all waters would be considered down to the brooks, pouds, and 

 eveu ditches. 



From this an idea may be formed of the vast work to be done in mak- 

 ing the waters of the United States afford their proper quota of the food- 

 resources of the future. 



The physical conditions of the Mississippi River in contrast with the 

 rivers of the Atlantic coast which contain or have contained the Atlan- 

 lic salmon (Sahno salar) are very marked. Such streams as the Saint 

 John of New Brunswick, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, and the Andros- 

 coggin of Maine, the Merriinac of New Hampshire, and the Connecticut 

 of Western New England are, for their greater lengths, clear and with 

 rocky bottoms, with considerable fall, and with sources, in the longest, 

 not more than 500 miles from the sea. 



The Lower Mississippi is a turbid, alluvial stream, with a fall of less 

 than 5 inches to the mile for eighteen hundred miles from the Gulf. The 

 nearest source, having an elevation of 3,000 feet, is near the head of the 

 Red River, about 1,500 miles from the delta. Fort Atkinson, Kansas, on 

 the Arkansas River, has an elevation of 2,331 feet, 1,750 miles from the 

 mouth of the Mississippi River. 



The remoteness of the elevated cold sources of the Mississippi seems 

 to be its most unfavorable feature when viewed as to the adaptation 

 of salmon to its waters. The California salmon traverse the Sac- 

 ramento Valley to the headwaters of the Little Sacramento and the 

 McCloud Rivers, about four hundred miles, to the headwaters of the 

 San Joaquin, about two hundred and fifty miles. To Fort Boise, on the 

 Snake River, where the Salmo quinnat are said to have been taken from 

 the mouth of the Columbia River, is about seven hundred miles. There 

 is no hindrance to their ascent to the vicinity of the Shoshone Falls, one 

 hundred and fifty miles above Fort Boise, which would increase the 

 distance from the Pacific Ocean to about eight hundred and fifty miles. 

 The great Shoshone Falls of the Snake River, over two hundred feet 

 high, are of course an effectual barrier to their progress up the stream. 

 In the report of the commissioners of Iowa,t a correspondent writing 

 from Elko, Nev., says: "This stream is one of the many that form the 

 headwaters of the Columbia River, and to this point, eighteen hundred 



miles from its mouth, the salt-water salmon come in myriads to spawn." 



* — 



* A rough approximation made by running a chartometer on the Land-Office map, 



and correcting tbe error by comparison of lengtbs of seventeen rivers given in the 



work just referred to. 

 t First Report of tbe State Fisb Commissioners of Iowa for tbe years 1874 and 1875. 



Des Moines : R. P. Clarkson, State Printer, 1876, p. 17 



