Ixviii REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



long a map of the United States showing the points where efforts must 

 be directed toward opening the streams for the upward movement of 

 fish. 



Sahnon were at one time very abundant in Lake Champlain and 

 Lake Ontario, even within the memory of persons now living;* but 

 their upward course in the great lakes was always barred by the Falls 

 of Niagara. Now they are apparently unknown in either body of water, 

 except on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario, where the judicious 

 methods adopted by Mr. Wilmot, at Newcastle, have largely increased 

 their numbers, and have enabled him, under direction of the govern- 

 ment, to furnish a supply of eggs and young to adjacent waters in the 

 provinces, and even to a limited extent to parties in the United States. 



Much contrariety of opinion has been expressed as to whether the 

 salmon of Lake Ontario really run to the sea, or whether the lake is to 

 it an ocean in which it finds the necessary subsistence, except when 

 moving up the streams to spawn. The size is rather less than that of 

 the ocean salmon, but it is otherwise undistinguishable. Whether this 

 be the case or not, there is not much question as to the possibility of 

 keeping Lake Ontario supplied with salmon, provided obstructions to the 

 l^assage of the fish to suitable spawning-grounds in inflowing streams 

 be obviated by suitable fish-ways. 



As far as tht^ lakes above the falls are concerned, nothing can be deter- 

 mined without experiment ; but it is extremely probable that enough 

 of these fish might remain, without descending the falls, to establish a spe- 

 cial stock. We know that the temperature of Lakes Michigan and 

 Superior, of which we have the best information, amounts, at a depth of 

 145 fathoms, to 45 degrees in September, in the one, and to 39 degrees, in 

 depths of over 40 fathoms, in the other. We also know that all the lakes 

 abound to an enormous extent in minute Crustacea, especially of the genus 

 My.-sis, which is undistinguishable from a species which in the North 

 Atlantic is believed to furnish in large part subsistence to the salmon. 

 It is upon this and two or three species of the Gammarus that the 

 white-fish feeds, and it is not improbable that both salmon and shad 



* Watson, in his history of Essex County, N. Y., speaking of the fish in Lake Cham- 

 plain, says : " The early settlers of the valley of Lake Champlain found the streams 

 upon both sides filled with salmon. They were very large, and among the most deli- 

 cate and luscious of all fish. All that period they were abundant, and so fearless as to 

 be taken with great ease and in immense quantities. A record exists of five hundred 

 having been killed in the Boquet in one afternoon, and as late as 1813 about fifteen- 

 hundred pounds of salmon were taken by a single haul of a seine, near Port Kendall. 

 They have been occasionally found within the last twenty years, in some of the most 

 rapid streams, but have now totally disappeared. The secluded haunts they loved 

 have been invaded ; dams have impeded their wonted routes ; the filth of occupied 

 streams has disturbed their cleanly habits, and the clangor of steamboats and machinery 

 has excited their fears . Each of these causes is assigned as a circumstance that has 

 deprived the country of an important article of food and a choice luxurj'. The subject 

 is not unworthy the inquiry and investigation of the philosopher of nature." 



