REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. LXXV 



on floatiug barges, anchored in Spesutie Narrows, a narrow channel 

 separating Spesutie Island from the mainland. 



To enable the steam launches used in this work to ply between the 

 fisheries and this central hatching station at all stages of the tide, it 

 was necessary that a channel should be dredged across the bar which 

 had formed at the northern mouth of the narrows. By sx^ecial instruc- 

 tions from the President, or Secretary of War, Colonel Craighill, in 

 charge of the engineer work of the district embracing the Chesapeake 

 Bay, had a channel dredged which greatly facilitated the work during 

 the season. 



Having secured for a term of years the fishing advantages of Battery 

 Island (which is situated in the center of the bay, about 3 J miles directly 

 south from Havre de Grace), as being a location much more central to 

 the fisheries from which we received the spawn, t^olonel Craighill was 

 advised of our plans, and in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, 

 made a survey of the surroundings and an estimate of the cost of deepen- 

 ing the cliannel and constructing the piers and a breakwater necessary 

 for the conduct of our work ; but it was not until the following year 

 (1880) that an appropriation was made. The work was commenced in 

 July of that year. 



A channel was dredged to the island, securing a draft of 7 feet, 

 and a pool of the same depth, formed by crib- work filled with earth 

 and stone, was formed for the protection of the hatching barges and 

 small boats of the Commission, and also for the storing of the live fish 

 which might be taken before the eggs were thoroughly developed in 

 the ovaries. In this pool the ''unrij)e" fish will be retained, and the 

 eggs taken from time to time as they mature. The material dredged 

 from the channel and the pool was thrown behind the crib- work and 

 raised considerably the level of the remaining portion of the island. 



Additional ajipropriations for strengthening and extending the piers 

 were provided for in the bills for river and harbor improvement in the 

 following years (1881 and 1882), sufQcient, it is hoped, for the comple- 

 tion of these imi^rovements, and the work has thus far been prosecuted 

 in a most satisfactory manner. 



As the fishery on this island was one of the most successful and re- 

 munerative of the large fisheries of the TJiiper Chesapeake, it is confi- 

 dently anticipated that we will have ample material in the way of parent 

 fish, and that the production of young shad will be greatly increased 

 and the operations carried on much more compactly than heretofore. 



In the spring of 1881 two small cottages, one of five rooms and the 

 other containing two rooms, and an ice-house, constructed on the Eidg- 

 way principle, were erected at the station, and the cottages occupied 

 as quarters for the corps during the fishing season. 



It was not, however, practicable until the spring of the present year 

 (1882), to erect a suitable hatching house, the hatching operations hav- 



