REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 385 



Passaic Rivers is one of the worst breeding places in the State- 

 Some years ago a company was formed to improve this piece of 

 land. Wide ditches were cut and high embankments were made 

 along the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. This ditching opera- 

 tion would have been very satisfactory had they thought to pro- 

 vide an outlet for the ditches. Instead of that they ended blindly 

 against the embankments ; the water could not get out, nor 

 could fishes get in. Only very extraordinary tides ever got 

 over the embankment, and these, somehow, never brought fish, 

 so there was nothing at all to prevent mosquito breeding on the 

 most extensive scale. 



No less than eight inspections of this territory have been made 

 by Mr. Brehme, and in each case one or more of the ditches was 

 followed for its full length. In every instance every ditch was 

 swarming with larvae and pupje, and when a heavy storm formed 

 pools on the surface of the marsh these also would be .found filled ' 

 with newly-hatched wrigglers. The days of this bad area are 

 numbered, however. Two large hydraulic dredges are at present 

 writing employed in pumping sand and gravel over these 

 meadows and are covering acres in each day's work. The sand 

 naturally slides along the line of the ditches first of all, and these 

 breeding areas are becoming rapidly eliminated. As far as the 

 water carries any load of sediment, the breeding has stopped evert 

 though more Avater than ever now covers the marsh surfaoe.. 

 But toward the east, where the influence of the dredge is not yet 

 felt, breeding proceeds merrily. It is certain, however, that if 

 the work so well begam is continued through the summer of 1905, 

 very little breeding area will remain ; and, when this work is com- 

 pleted, Kearny will have practically no breeding places save such 

 as are within the town itself and due to individual or municipal 

 neglect. 



The area south of the Plank Road to Point-no-Point, is 

 entirely safe, first, because every tide covers most of it ; second, 

 because the cat-tails are so dense in most portions as to bar all 

 mosquito breeding. 



Though the dredging and filling now going on is not due to 

 municipal enterprise and though the control of the mosquito pest 

 formed no part of the plan of those who ordered the work, 

 nevertheless the results from my standpoint are almost ideal and 

 will prove an object lesson. 



e. THE JERSEY CITY PROBLEM. 



Under the general term Jersey City I include all the territory 

 extending to Bayonne and the immediate surroundings, so far as 

 25 MOS 



