108 Part II[.— Twenty-fourth Annual Report 
IV.—REPORT ON THE OPERATIONS AT THE MARINE FISH 
HATCHERY, BAY OF NIGG, ABERDEEN, IN 1905. By 
Dr. T. Wemyss Fuuron, F.R.S.E., Scientific Superintendent. 
(Piates VI., VII.) 
Last year, owing to the making of a new road at the Bay of Nigg, it 
was desired by the Town Council of Aberdeen, from whom the site of the 
hatchery is leased, that the hatchery and some of the buildings in connec- 
tion with it should be transferred to an adjacent site and re-erected at their 
expense. This was agreed to by the Board, and the hatchery, the boiler 
and pump-house, and the store-house were accordingly taken down and 
re-built on ground lying to the north of the old site, and contiguous to it. 
This alteration involved a re-arrangement of the pipes to a considerable 
extent, and the opportunity was taken to effect some improvements which 
experience showed was desirable, both in connection with the pipes and 
pumping plant, and in connection with the buildings. The Town Council 
and the Burgh Surveyor, under whose charge the removal was made, gave 
every reasonable facility for these alterations and improvements being 
effected, and the hatchery is thus much better adapted for the work than 
it was before. 
A strong wall of boulders, about two feet in thickness, has been built 
with concrete on the seaward face of the new site, so as to protect it from 
the action of the sea in storms; and this has been made continuous with 
the bulwark of boulders built up after the great storm in February 1900, 
which happened in conjunction with spring tides, when the site of the large 
spawning pond, then in course of construction, was flooded. Owing to 
the somewhat higher level of the ground at part of the new site, that next 
the road, it was necessary to excavate it to a small extent in order to keep 
the levels the same as formerly. This is required, as the water supplied 
to the hatching apparatus comes by gravitation from the storage or 
reservoir tank (a, fig. 1, plate VI.), to which it is pumped from the sea. 
Strong granite retaining walls have been built around the reservoir, and 
between it and the new site. 
The establishment consists, in addition to the laboratory (showy at a 
in fig. 2, pl. VI.), of (1) a spawning pond, (2) a reservoir or storage tank, 
(3) the hatching-house, (4) boiler and pump-house, (5) a tank-house, 
(6) storehouse, and it may be desirable to give a brief description of the 
arrangements as they now exist. 
The spawning pond (fig. 2, pl. VI.), which was the most costly part of 
the establishment, consists of a large concrete tank or pond sunk in the 
ground in order that it may be filled and emptied, according to the state 
of the tide, without pumping being required. The levels were arranged 
so that at high water of ordinary neap tides an average depth of four feet 
might be obtained in the pond. The tank is 90 feet in length by 35 feet 
in width, and has an average depth of 73 feet, the bottom sloping to one 
end, where the depth is 10 feet; it is capable of holding about 160,000 
gallons of sea water. The water is admitted from the beach by an inflow 
pipe 12 inches in diameter; the portion of this going through the 
embankment separating the pond from the beach is of iron, the remainder, 
