ATKINS ON FISH-WAYS. 593 



morning. In a fish- way without bays, I suppose they would pass down 

 quite through it. Their movements, except in very difficult places, are 

 always leisurely. At East Machias, when ascending the rapids below 

 the fish-ways, they are generally several hours in accomplishing a dis- 

 tance which they are capable of doing in a few minutes. When occa- 

 sion requires, they exhibit great agility and hardiness. They will turn 

 on their sides and push themselves up a steep inclined plane against a 

 sheet of water not half as thick as their bodies. Nevertheless they are 

 ordinarily easily frightened, and one dip of a net or even the sight of a 

 moving form will often drive them back from a fall or deter them from 

 entering a fish way. 



Salmon are less inclined than alewives to leave the main current of a 

 river, and their superior size and strength enable them to pass with 

 comparative ease over falls that alewives would attempt in vain. It is 

 commonly supposed that the scaling of a perpendicular fall of six or 

 seven feet marks the limit of a salmon's power; but it is a well-attested 

 fact that under favorable circumstances they have surmounted perpen- 

 dicular falls of more than twice that height. A case in point is Carra- 

 tunk Falls on the Kennebec, where the whole river rolls over a 

 precipice into a gorge only about 60 feet wide. The height of the fall 

 is 1(>^ feet, and it is as near perpendicular as the great volume of water 

 and the narrowness of the gorge will admit. The depth of water at 

 the foot of the fall is unknow^i; a pine log more than 50 feet long, 

 going down endwise, disappears with great velocity, but is never heard 

 to strike bottom, and wlieu it re-a[)pears, after a prolonged absence, it 

 leaps nearly its whole length into the air. I have it from several trust- 

 worthy sources that many salmon have been seen to surmount these 

 falls. They were observed in all the reported cases to leap through the 

 air obliquely and strike the column of falling water at the height of 10 to 

 13 fe'et from its base, and swim from that point to the summit of the 

 fall. Only those succeeded that struck the face of the fall with head 

 straight against the current, and the majority of the leaps were unsuc- 

 cessful. This feat would probably be impossible, were it not for the great 

 depth of the water at the base of the fall, which affords sufficient space 

 for the salmon to acquire a great momentum. In the pond at Bucks- 

 port, salmon have been seen to leap from still water 10 feet deep and 

 clear a hedge 5^ feet high. In passing over low falls they rarely leap, 

 but swim up in the sheet of falling water, which must have a consider- 

 able bod}' to nmke the ascent possible, a thin sheet of water often caus- 

 ing the salmon to expose parts of his organs of locomotion to the air ; an 

 occurrence which sends him back to the foot of the fall. From what 

 has been said to illustrate the strength and agility of the salmon, it is 

 not to be inferred that they will pass all falls where it would be possible 

 for them to do so. Leaping is something rarely observeil, and it is 

 quite likely that sahnon hesitate long before attemi)ting it, and that a 

 large part of them will never attempt it. At the Augusta dam, 

 S. Mis, 71 38 



