XXI.-THE REPORT OF OPERATIONS AT THE UNITED STATES 

 SALMON-BREEDING STATION ON THE McCLOUD RIVER, CALI- 

 FORNIA, DURING THE SEASON OF 1881. 



By LivixosTox Stone. 



Hon. Spencer F. Baird: 



Sir: I beg leave to report as follows: When my last report closed in 

 October, 1880, 2,000,000 salmon eggs had been left in the McCloud Eiver 

 hatching-house to be hatched by the State of California for the Sacra 

 mento River and its tributaries. These were successfully hatched and 

 placed in the McCloud River before Christmas, when all work at tliis 

 station was discontinued for the season. 



Up to this time the rainfall had not been unusually large. Indeed, 

 there had been more than the customary number of fair days until the 

 18th of December, when it began to rain and continued to rain eleven 

 days in succession, the river rising on the 25th 8 feet and 2 inches above 

 its summer level. This was nothing extraordinary, however, and no 

 fears or even misgivings were entertained of any disaster from flood to 

 the fishery buildings, they being built from 18 to 19 feet above the river. 

 There was a dense fog over the jMcCloud River the last two days of De- 

 cember, but no rain, and when the new year opened the river had fallen 

 back to within a foot and a half of its usual level. 



The month of January, however, was attended by a rainfall wholly 

 unprecedented in Northern California since its settlement by white men.* 



Forty-seven inches of water fell at Shasta during this month, and in 

 the mountains where the fishery is situated the fall must have been 

 much greater. On the 27th of January the McCloud had risen 12i feet, 

 but the water had been higher than that in previous years, and still no 

 one supposed that the buildings were in danger. Again the river fell, 

 but this time the fall was succeeded by the greatest rise of water ever 

 known in this river before, either by white men or Indians now living. 

 During the first days of February the rain i^oured down in torrents. 

 It is said by those who saw it that it did not fall as rain usually falls, 

 but it fell as if thousands of tons of water were dropped in a body from 



* Rainfall at Shasta, January, 1881 47 inches. 



Rainfall at Shasta, February, 1881 17.5 inches. 



Total rainfall for season 109. 7 inches. 



I hereby certify the aboye to be correct. 



JAMES E. ISAACS, 

 Weather Observer, Shasta, Cal. 

 Shasta, Cal., August 1, 1881. 



[-J ' 1063 



