320 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



to the consumer ; (3) which is the most destructive ; (4) which is most 

 calculated to exhaust the supply % 



There are ouly about 2 miles of frontage here where pound-nets can 

 be set, on account of the form of the lake bottom. Just along here for 

 the 2 miles it is a sand and mud bottom, and the only place where pound 

 stakes can be driven. The rest of the shore from here to Silver Creek, 

 in New York, and from here to Fairport, in Ohio, is rocky bottom, and 

 pound-nets cannot be set. Thus we have a rocky shore for a distance 

 of almost 200 miles, with only a small space of sand and mud at this 

 place. 



Erie, Pa., March 27, 1885. 



10».— RESTOCKING THE UEISKIUAt: RIVER WITH LAMPREV 



EELS. 



By GEORGE 'W. RIDDLE. 



[Letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



Amoskeag Falls on the Merriinac River was once the great fishing- 

 place of New Hampshire. It was here Passacanaway and his tribe of 

 Indians lived and had their noted fishing-place, more than one hundred 

 and twenty -five years ago : the waters teemed with salmon, shad, and 

 lamprey eels. About forty years ago a high dam was built on the Mer- 

 rimac River at Lawrence, Mass., 40 miles below here and some 25 miles 

 from the mouth of the Merrimac River, which enters the Atlantic 

 Ocean at Newburyport, Mass. 



Since the building of the Lawrence dam (30 feet in height) fish and 

 eels have become extinct, as they could not reach the spawning beds. 

 Fishways bave been built ten years or more, but no eels and but few 

 salmon have come up the river. Four years ago I took from the Law- 

 rence fishway some 200 lampreys, placed them in barrels, and trans- 

 ported them by rail above Amoskeag Falls. The result is that this 

 year thousands of full-grown eels have put in an appearance and have 

 gone up through the fishway. 



They have ascended the river to the hatching house at Plymouth, 150 

 miles from the mouth of the river. Thousands of them have been seen 

 at Amoskeag Falls in this city on their way to the spawning bed. As 

 they have once more reached their spawning beds, I have no doubt that 

 the return is a permanent one. 



It is' a great satisfaction to the fish commissioners to know that they 

 have succeeded in restocking this river (which turns more machinery 

 than any other river in the world, it is said) with lamprey eels, and it 

 gives our people much encouragement to go on in the great work of re- 

 stocking the large water-area of this state. 



Manchester, N. H., June 19, 1885. 



