8 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
could produce if their natural capabilities were not handi- 
capped by artificial drawbacks. 
For the deau idéal of a salmon fishery, we must look 
to a country where Nature reigns supreme; where man 
has not yet had time or opportunity to interfere materially 
with her processes; and where he does not overdraw the 
large account which she has placed to his credit in her bank. 
A few of the streams in the remoter parts of Scotland 
approach very nearly to this standard : but to see a salmon 
river in the fulness of its abundance we must cross the 
Atlantic and visit the western slopes of the Rocky 
Mountains. There we shall find the waters of the Columbia, 
the Fraser, the Sacramento, the Homathco and other rivers 
literally swarming with countless hundreds of thousands of 
salmon. 
Speaking of the salmon of the River Fraser in his 
work on “ Vancouver Island and British Columbia,” Mr. 
Matthew Macfie, F.R.G.S., says:—“At certain times the 
cafions or gorges of the river are so crowded with salmon 
that the navigation of canoes is virtually impeded. The 
Indians catch them with a pole, attached to one end of which 
is a transverse piece of wood. Into this are stuck tenpenny 
nails. Leaning over the gorge they strike the nails into the 
fish, impaling one or two at each descent of the pole.” 
Again, the same writer says of another river :—“ An officer 
in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who resided on 
the Columbia River (Oregon) for many years, states that on 
a sudden falling of the waters the numbers of salmon left on 
the banks are so immense as to cause the river to stink for 
miles.” 
Still more recently Mr. Livingston Stone, whose name is 
so well known in connection with fish culture in the United 
States, describes the enormous shoals of salmon in the 
