tite SVE VON PISHERIES: 
CHARTER] i 
Importance of the Salmon Fisheries—Former abundance of Salmon 
—Salmon in the Thames—Present Value of the British Salmon 
Fisheries—A Salmon River under Natural Conditions—Abundance 
of Salmon in American Rivers. 
THE great interest which has more or less for the last 
six centuries, or even longer, centred round the Salmon 
Fishery question is due to two causes :—first, to the esteem 
in which the flesh of the salmon has always been held ; and, 
second, to the necessity for protecting the fisheries against 
the continually increasing array of interests inimical to them 
with which they have become surrounded, and which have 
from time to time threatened their existence. 
Distributed, roughly speaking, over the greater part of 
the Northern Hemisphere lying north of 35°, the salmon of 
different countries, and even of different rivers, present 
marked peculiarities, according to the temperature of the 
water, the nature of their food, and other local circum- 
stances. The salmon of the British Islands have always 
had the reputation of excelling in quality those of any 
other country; and until neglect and abuse had brought 
them to the verge of extinction, and before the pro- 
gress of settlement in the New World had opened up 
the vast wealth of fish of the North American continent, 
they probably held the first place in point of numbers as 
B 
