1902-3.] Sawdust and Fish Life. 431 



by the drainage of spruce and cedar swamps. At the outlet of the lowest pond once 

 stood a village called Hallockville, which operated a grist mill, sundry sawmills, and 

 what was then the largest tannery in Massachusetts. It was burned in 1846 and never 

 rebuilt, and the dams and foundation walls are now almost destroyed and buried by a 

 new growth of forest. But the sluice and flood stream below are still clogged with 

 the sawdust and tan bark deposited a half century ago, and the water is black and for- 

 bidding, though much broken into swirls and rapids by boulders and ledges. But for 

 the colour of the water, it is a most likely-looking place for trout, though it has been 

 tested time and time again without successful results. It has always been maintained, 

 from the date of the building of the tannery, that there were no trout in it. I used to 

 fish it myself when I was a boy. Last summer I took therefrom five small trout with a 

 worm. They had doubtless worked their way up from the Buckland streams below, for 

 they never came through the dam from the pickerel ponds above. Nevertheless, the 

 lower streams are occupied by many sawmills, and carry their proportion of sawdust, 

 that substance which some of your correspondents maintain is fatal to fish life. I leave 

 your readers to draw their inferences, and trust that Mr. Fred. Mather will feel himself 

 sustained by this testimony of the streams. That gentleman is not apt to make mis- 

 takes. He is grey with the experience of years, and that is better than guess work, 

 Washington, December 2gth. Charles Hallock, 



In this same year (1889) a very remarkable report on this subject 

 was sent to the Hon. C. H. Tupper, the Minister of Marine and 

 Fisheries, Ottawa, by W. H. Rogers, late Inspector of Fisheries for Nova 

 Scotia. The report did not appear among the State papers, and it was 

 consequently published in Halifax under the title of " The Suppressed 

 Sawdust Report!' No one can read this pamphlet without being 

 staggered with the mass of information which is supplied to prove the 

 harmlessness of sawdust, and the marvel is that the Minister did not 

 order a thorough investigation to be made into the whole subject. 



Of course, diametrically opposite views were expressed by other 

 fishery officers, in whose judgment, no doubt, the Minister had perfect 

 confidence. For example, Mr. S. Wilmot, the Superintendent of the 

 Dominion Fish Hatcheries, wrote a very vigorous report denouncing 

 the deadly effects of sawdust, and his opinions were certainly entitled to 

 some weight. But there was this marked difference between the reports 

 of the two officers : Mr. Rogers' was bristling with facts and observa- 

 tions based evidently upon first hand knowledge of the subject, whereas 

 Mr. Wilmots' report showed no close acquaintance with it. 



Turning again to the reports of the United States Fish Commis- 

 sioner, we do not find any further reference to sawdust until 1892, when 

 Mr, Hugh M. Smith again reports upon " The fisheries of the Great 

 Lakes." At page 404 he says : — " At first white fish and trout were 

 both abundant. , . . Since 1881 or 1882 they have been com- 

 paratively scarce. , , , The gill-net fishermen lay the blame on the 

 small meshed pound-nets. The pound-net fishermen, on the other hand 



