63 



In 1918, 1919 and 1920 satisfactory fishways of the standard 

 types have been installed at the dam locations of the Connecti- 

 cut Mills, East Taunton, the Stanley Works, West Bridgewater, 

 the Jenkins Leatherboard Company, Bridgewater, the Essex 

 Mills, Lawrence, the Carver Cotton Gin Company of East 

 Bridgewater, and the Ipswich Mills of Ipswich. Plans calling 

 for the construction of like fishways, with some minor modifi- 

 cations, have been submitted for installation in the near future 

 to the Easton Investment Company of West Bridgewater, the 

 Locks and Canals Company of Lowell, and Mr. Benjamin 

 Cummings of South Dartmouth. 



Screens. — Of equal importance is the preservation from de- 

 struction of the young alewives by water wheels as they descend 

 the streams in the fall. Suitable provision other than through 

 the sluiceway of the mill should be made at each dam for the 

 passage of the small fish down stream. In certain cases where 

 large quantities of water are used this is a serious problem, 

 owing to the fact that the water, during the fall, is too low to 

 run over the spillway. In such instances the fishway should be 

 kept open either continually or intermittently, so that the 

 young alewives may have a passageway without a surplus 

 waste of water. To prevent the young fish from following the 

 greater flow, and passing into the sluiceway of the mill where 

 they may be injured and probably destroyed in numbers, the 

 mill companies should be required to install screens. 



Pollution. 



With the continuous growth of towns and cities, unless better 

 methods of disposal are devised, and more stringent regulations 

 enforced, the amount of water pollution is inevitably bound to 

 increase. Since the alewife streams form part of this general 

 problem, similar methods of treatment are necessary. The 

 pollution question is so important, difficult and complex in its 

 inevitable conflict with large manufacturing interests that to 

 dismiss it in the few words necessitated by the limited scope of 

 this paper seems most inadequate. 



It is generally acknowledged that pollution destroys or in- 

 jures fish life. Nevertheless, the immediate and ultimate effects 



