430 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



Most of the buildings have since been destroyed by fire or tumbled into pieces by 

 decay, bul the old foundation, walls, and dams remain, and untold tons of tanbark and 

 sawdust still cover the beds of the abandoned mill ponds knee deep, all of it in a perfect 

 state of preservation, as I happen to know from wading the stream last summer. 

 Nevertheless, the brook continues fairly stocked with small trout, despite the supple- 

 mentary fact that it has been unmercifully fished ever since the memorial days of the 

 " Mountain Miller," fifty fingerlings per rod being- not unusual now for a days' catch. 

 Besides, at no time within my recollection have there been less than three sawdust-pro- 

 ducing mills on this stream at once, so that it may be asserted that its waters have not 

 been normally clear for a century. Where the current is rapid and the water broken 

 by ledges and boulders, the presence of the sawdust is scarcely perceptible, but at mill- 

 tails, and in the basins above the dams, it accumulates in quantity and remains, becom- 

 ing water soaked and sinking to the bottom. 



Obviously, in localities where the entire bottom is imbedded by sawdust, fish can 

 neither spawn nor feed ; but it happens that such deposits do not form on their breeding 

 places, nor is the area of their foraging ground appreciably diminished by their 

 presence. Even in the half-emptied and now useless ponds, the current constantly 

 scours out a central channel through the sawdust, leaving the bottom clear and pebbly ; 

 so that, in fact, these local beds are of no more detriment to the fish than so many sub- 

 merged logs. The trout can range far and wide without encountering them at all. Yet, 

 strange to say — that is, it must seem strange to those persons who take it for granted 

 that sawdust kills fish — the most likely places for the larger trout are these self-same 

 pebbly channels in the old ponds, along whose edges, despite a hundred freshets and 

 ice-shoves, the persistent sawdust and tanbark lie in wind-rows so deep that the wader 

 feels as if he were going to sink out of sight whenever he puts his foot into the yielding 

 mass, every movement of which stirs up a broadening efflorescence which spreads for 

 rods away, distributing itself throughout the stream. 



From these sawdust beds I can always fish out three or four good trout with a 

 cautious fly, and at certain times the surface is fairly dimpled with breaking fish, which 

 presumably are after larvae and insects which the sawdust has harboured, though careful 

 investigation might discover other inducements for their congregating there. 



In passing I would remark that this Mill Brook is fed by seven lateral brooklets, 

 which tumble into it from the adjacent hillsides at intervals between dams, and are so 

 eff"ectually protected by overgrowth that they must always serve as prolific breeding 

 places, secure from predatory birds and small boys, as well as places of refuge to trout 

 which wish to escape the sawdust of the main stream. I have seen trout streams, 

 especially in the pine barrens of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan, which were by no 

 means as favoured as this Mill Brook, the current being comparatively sluggish, and not 

 so capable of purging itself of sawdust ; yet I know ot few trout streams in anj- lumber 

 region where its denizens cannot avoid the sawdust if they will, by withdrawing to the 

 headquarters or lateral tributaries, provided fishways are supplied to enable them to sur- 

 mount the dams where the accumulations chiefly occur. What I remark as most 

 singular in the Mill Brook is, that the trout gather most where the sawdust is thickest, 

 both on old mill sites and on sites where mills are running now. I take my best trout 

 right from under the flume of a whipstock factory and sawmill, where the refuse is 

 dumped as fast as it forms. 



But I recall to mind a still more striking example of the innocuousness of sawdust. 

 There are in Hampshire county, Massachusetts, a series of three large natural reser- 

 voirs, varying from half a mile to two miles in length, which for fifty years have 

 abounded in pickerel, perch, eels, and bullheads. 



It is said that they originally contained trout, but the water is dark and discolored 



