STONE ON THE SACRAMENTO SALMON. 169 



numbers that we counted sixty iu one spot, as we stood at the waters' 

 edge. It was evident that this was the place to get the breeding fish, and 

 the next thing was to find water to mature the eggs for shipment. Tliis 

 was not so easy a task as finding the salmon, but we at last discovered 

 a spring stream, flowing a thousand gallons an hour, w^hich I decided to 

 use, this season at least, and on the morning of September 1, 1872, the 

 hatching- works of the first salmon-breediug statiou of the United States 

 were located on this stream. The location is about tliree miles up the 

 McCloud Eiver, on its left or western bank. It is oue hundred and 

 eighty-five miles from Sacramento City; three hundred and twenty- 

 three miles from San Francisco via Pacific Eailroad; four hundred and 

 fifty -three miles from Portland, Oreg. ; two hundred and seventy-two 

 miles from Oakland, Oreg.; fifty miles from Ked Bluft", Cal.; twenty-two 

 miles from Kedding, Cal. The poiut selected is on the California and Or- 

 egon stage-road, which, at the time of our arrival, connected with the 

 railroad at lied Blufi*. The railroad has now been continued to Bed- 

 ding, and it is thought that next year it will run within ten miles of the 

 salmon-breeding statiou. The spawn found in the fish that the Indians 

 were spearing on our arrival indicated that there was no time to spare iu 

 getting ready for the hatching- work. We were twenty-five miles from tlie 

 nearest town or vilhige, fifty miles from a railway station, over fifty miles 

 from an available saw-mill, and in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where 

 the mule-teams barely made twenty miles a day with sui)plies; but we 

 went to work, and iu fifteen days we had a house built, filtering tauks, 

 hatching apparatus, and flume in perfect running order, and on the 10th 

 of September were catching and corralling the salmon. There were but 

 three of us, and every day for a Aveek the mercury ran from 105° to 112° 

 F. in the shade. But although we worked so expeditiously through the 

 broilhig sun of those days, we were too late. The first few hauls of the 

 net showed that the salmon had spawned. In fact, the salmon begin to 

 spawu in the McCloud Eiver some time iu August, and are through 

 spawning, or nearly through, by the 12th of September. 



We caught plenty of salmon in the seine, but only rarely a female 

 with ova. By hard fishing, and hauling tlie seine every night and 

 sometimes all night, we succeeded in capturing twenty-six salmon, includ- 

 ing both sexes, in spawning condition, by the 2Sth of September. On 

 the night of the 28th, at midnight, as the returns did not seem to war- 

 rant the expense of handling the seine, I stopped fishing. Of the 

 twenty-six breeding salmon caught, twelve were females and yielded 

 about 50,000 eggs. Of this number 20,000 were destroyed by the terri- 

 ble heat of the last of September; the mercury on some days reaching 

 as high as 112° in the shade. The remaining 30,000 did well, in spite 

 of many dangers from sediment, and from a fungoid growth which 

 seemed to permeate the brook water on hot days, and which rendered 

 constant rigilauce necessary; and on the 12th day of October, the most 

 advanced eggs showed the eye-spots. By Friday, October 18, all the 



