224 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



would be found dead in their pens, in most eases, probably, in conse- 

 quence of their bruises. Day after day and week after week they died. 

 The more we caught the more we lost ; until at last about as many died 

 daily as we succeeded in catching, and though we took that year about 

 two million eggs, we should probably have taken nearly, if not fully, as 

 many if we had not drawn the seine at all until the spawning season 

 began. 



THE BRIDGE AND DAM ACROSS THE RIVER. 



The evident impossibility of ever successfully confining the parent 

 salmon in ponds or pens made the necessity imperative of devising 

 some sort of means for collecting the spawning fish together in large 

 numbers. The object of this station was to take salmon eggs on a 

 large scale, and if only two million could be secured at a season the 

 enterprise would be virtually a failure. Besides this, the immense 

 amount of labor and expense that was incurred in 1873 in getting the 

 two million eggs of that year seemed exceedingly disproportionate to 

 the number of eggs obtained. At this critical juncture a new idea sug- 

 gested itself, which was to put a dam across the river at the fishery, 

 which would prevent the salmon from ascending the river any higher. 

 Their irrepressible instinct to push up the stream would, it was thought, 

 prevent them from going down the river, and the dam keeping them 

 from going up any further, it was believed that the salmon would col- 

 lect in great quantities in front of the fishery. This idea was carried 

 into practice in the season of 1874, and it fulfilled our highest expecta- 

 tions. The impassable dam was built, the river closed to the ascent of 

 the breeding salmon in July, and before the spawning season commenced, 

 to our great delight, they were collected in vast quantities below the 

 dam. The great problem of securing salmon eggs on a large scale was 

 solved. We experienced the great relief which comes when the pros- 

 pect of assured success takes the place of the prospect of failure. Dur- 

 ing the spawning season of that year we took &,7o0,000 eggs. The 

 crisis was so important and the effect of our project so novel and inter- 

 esting, that perhaps I may be excused for quoting something relating 

 to the subject from my report of operations for the year 1874 : 



"With the time and men at my command, the construction of the bridge 

 and dam was an undertaking of no small magnitude. The point se- 

 lected for the purpose was just below the hatching-tents, where the 

 river begins to break over a series of rapids. It was necessary to do 

 the work here or at some similar place in order to avoid the deep holes 

 and irregularities of the river-bed which prevailed everywhere in the 

 channel. This necessity, however, involved the disadvantage of hav- 

 ing very swift water to work in — so swift indeed that a boat could not 

 be held for a moment along the whole line of the biidge without being 

 made fast to the shore. This disadvantage was the more serious be- 

 cause the snow-water which forms the river is so cold that the men 

 working in it, as they were obliged to, a great deal of the time up to 



