PACIFIO SALMON FISHERIES. 95 
reducing the dangers to which the fish are subject during this stage 
of their career, and thus adding materially to the value of the 
method. 
In the opinion of the author, the best way in which to conserve the 
fisheries of the coast is by enacting and enforcing laws under which 
a certain proportion of the runs will be enabled to reach the spawning 
beds and perform the final and most important function of their 
lives unmolested. If this is done, there can be no question of the 
perpetuation of the industry, and if it is then supplemented by the 
work of hatcheries, which would reduce the loss in the egg and early 
fry stages, assurance on this point would be made doubly sure. 
If unrestricted fishing is to prevail, however, with a dependence 
upon hatcheries alone to repair the ravages of man, the industry will 
suffer seriously, for, from the very nature of things, less and less fish 
will annually escape through the fishing zone, resulting in a continu- 
ally lessening quantity of eggs being obtained at the hatcheries, and 
finally the latter will have to close down from sheer lack of material 
upon which to work. 
Should eggs be brought to the hatchery from other streams, it 
would merely be “robbing Peter to pay Paul,’ and in the end the 
same result would follow in those streams. 
Fortunately these matters are becoming increasingly plain to the 
people of the various States, Provinces, and Territories concerned, 
and, while a few selfish. persons in each are seeking solely their own 
enrichment by any means possible, the greater number of those 
interested in fishing operations want to see the indu&try perpetuated 
and are willing to do almost anything that will work to this end. 
Next to the fishing operations of man, the gravest danger to the 
salmon fisheries of the Pacific coast lies in the pollution of the rivers 
which the salmon ascend for spawning purposes. The salmon, both 
old and young, require pure cold water, and the immense runs which 
have annually ascended the streams for many years are doubtless 
due to the fact that such conditions have prevailed in them. The 
large increase in the population of the coast States within recent 
years, with the resulting increase of mills and factories, has greatly 
increased the amount of sewage from cities and towns and the waste 
from: the manufacturing plants. Many of the latter have also con- 
structed dams without adequate fishways, and these also wreak great 
havoc to the industry by cutting the fish off from the upper reaches 
of the rivers upon which constructed. 
The emptying of sewage into streams ought to be made a crime. 
It is an exceedingly crude method of dealing with it, and, instead of 
disposing of the filth, merely transfers it from one place to another, 
making the water unfit for use at points farther downstream and 
spreading diseases and death amongst, not only the finny, but also 
human, users of it. 
