ATKINS ON FISH-WAYS. 607 



in them a moment, and with low water the sheet pouring; over the rim of 

 each box is so thin as to deter fish from attempting the passage. To 

 leap from box to box would be easy enough for salmon and not beyond 

 the power of alewives, but neither of these fisbes is u-iUinf/ to leap an 

 obstruction. Probably salmon never leap a fall until all other means of 

 passing have been tried many times in vain, and perhaps, as has been 

 before remarked, many of them will never leap. The fish-way built at 

 Lowell, on the Merrimack, in 18G6, was after the box-i)atteru, arranged 

 very nearly as in the illustration of the box fish-way. It was very solidly 

 built, with boxes about twelve feet square. Its location was such that the 

 amount of water entering it could not be regulated, and consequently it 

 was frequently useless, either from floods or drought. At another place 

 in Massachusetts a fish-way of this kind was fairly tested in the presence 

 of a multitude of alewives. "At the Mystic Water-Power Company's 

 dam in West Medford," say the Massachusetts commissioners,* " was a 

 step-fish- way, consisting of a number of deep boxes, each communicating 

 with that above by a little fall. Nothing could be easier than this ascent. 

 The alewives swarmed in thousands at the foot of the dam. A few would 

 jump the first and second, and even the third fall. Beyond tliis not one 

 would go 5 nay, they would turn about and come down again." 



5. — SlVnTH'S FISH-WAY. 



Poor as the " pool " fish-way is, it is easily altered into a very eflBcient 

 form. It is only necessary to cut a narrow passage througli the wall 



the triangles are secured to said strinj;ers by means of iron bolts or clauips. The tri- 

 angles and bottom of the chute are to be paved with stone or other suitable material. 



By means of this arrangement, fish are enabled to pass up streams obstructed by dams 

 or slight vertical falls, or natural vertical obstructions, when not too elevated. 



In addition to this, it will be found that water running through a chute of this kind 

 will have a tendency to keep ciafts descending the chute in the center, and thus secure 

 to them a safer passage in their descent. In the present chutes, the force of v.-ater con- 

 fined in a narrow space has a tendency to. raise in the middle, and thus throw a raft 

 or ark or other craft out of the center to one side or other, and sometimes obliquely 

 across the chute. It also breaks the force of the water, and thus protects the bottom 

 of the chutes, and will have a tendency to prevent them from bursting up or being 

 washed out and forming breakers, so destructive to lumber-rafts and even the lives of 

 watermen. 



I am aware of the existence of Daniel Stack's patent of June 26, 1866, and do not 

 claim anything contained therein ; but — 



What I do claim, and desire to secure by letters patent, is — 



A series of isosceles or equilateral triangles, extending from the opposite side-walls 

 of the chute of a dam, and laid and secured in the bottom thereof, substantially in the 

 manner and for the purposes herein set forth. 



In testimony that I claim the foregoing as my own I affix my signature in the pres- 

 ence of two witnesses. 



JAMES D. BREWER. 



Witnesses: 



Wm. Brindle. 

 J. M. M. Gernerd. 

 * Report of the [Massachusetts] Commissioners of Fisheries for the year ending 

 January 1, 1870, p. 4. 



