ArticLe I]—IVays and Means of measuring the Dangers of Pol- 
lution to Fisheries. By Victor E, SHELFORD. 
INTRODUCTION 
We are at war with a powerful and well-organized nation which has 
planned and saved with war in view. In our belated endeavor to con- 
serve existing resources and-to develop new and latent ones new problems 
are constantly arising. Some of these concern fisheries and the pollution 
of waters. The U.S. Fish Commission is urging the public to eat fish— 
to make every day a fish day. This was no doubt done in the early days 
of our republic, for in a great strike of apprentices one of their chief 
demands was that they be not fed on salmon more than three times a 
week. The richness of the fish supply of our eastern states in their 
early colonial days and for a considerable time thereafter is said to have 
exceeded our wildest imagination. Meehan (’17) quotes an early writer 
who said of the shad in the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers: “They 
came in such vast multitudes that the still waters seemed filled with 
eddies, while the shallows were beaten into foam by them in their strug- 
gles to reach the spawning grounds.” They swarmed every spring from 
mouth to headwaters of every river from Maine to Florida. Shad was 
undoubtedly the most important food fish in the early days of our 
nation; they were eaten fresh, and smoked and salted for winter use. 
During the spring runs people traveled long distances to shoal waters to 
obtain their winter’s supply (Meehan, ’17). 
Along the Illinois River many years ago buttalo-fish afforded the 
chief marketable species. These were caught by farmers, fishermen, and 
others, and shipped by boat, principally to St. Louis. As no ice was used 
the fish frequently spoiled, or they were thrown away because the 
market was overloaded. Thus this great resource was depleted by care- 
less and wasteful methods of catching and marketing (Bartlett, 17). 
For a brief discussion of more recent decrease of buffalo-fish in the 
Illinois River see Richardson, ’13a, p. 409. 
The Atlantic salmon once entered all the rivers of New England; 
now it is the most expensive fish on the market. Our Great Lakes once 
yielded whitefish in abundance, but now the number is exceptionally small 
in comparison. Some of our Pacific-coast fisheries are likewise being 
depleted. Every stream formerly yielded fish to small boys and old-men 
anglers. If any of these sources yielded half their original quantity it 
would now be counted a veritable fortune in fish. 
Our fish resources have been depleted through neglect, carelessness, 
and the pollution of waters. Such as are still left are endangered by 
