22* REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Committee on Commerce of the Senate, and tbe opinion of the United 

 States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries asked in regard to it. His 

 reply will be found at length in the Appendix. It takes the ground 

 that the question of jurisdiction over the waters of the Columbia Eiver, 

 dividing the State of Oregon from the Territory of Washington, was 

 possibly not in the United States, Jind at any rate, until it had been so 

 declared, it would be inexpedient for the General Government to at- 

 tempt any special matter of regulation. It was, however, suggested 

 that by the erection of a suitable hatching establishment on the river, 

 any waste from excessive fishing might be more than made up by the 

 increased number of young fish turned into the waters. 



For the purpose of being prepared to act in the latter direction, should 

 Congress so direct, Mr. Livingston Stone, who has been, since 1872, in 

 charge of the hatching of salmon on the Pacific coast for the United 

 States Fish Commission, was instructed to proceed to the Columbia 

 Eiver and make a careful investigation of the whole question of abun- 

 dance and of supposed decrease, and to select such station or stations as 

 might in the future be established for the purpose of artificial propaga- 

 tion. He was also directed to make full collections in alcohol of the 

 salmonidiB of the Columbia Eiver, so as to determine the question as 

 to whether the California salmon is found in the Columbia also. 



On the Cth of May, 1875, Mr. Stone reached Portland on his mission 

 and occupied several weeks in its prosecution. From his report, which 

 will be found in the Appendix to the present volume, it will be seen that 

 he recognizes the fact of the reduction in abundance, the danger of 

 future exhaustion of the fishery and the destruction of the canning 

 interest, and the necessity of proper measures both of legislation and of 

 fish culture to arrest the impending evil. He selected one or more 

 stations, which he judged would be suited to the purpose, and made 

 extensive collections, from which it is ascertained that the most important 

 species of the Columbia is the Salmo quinnat, the same as that of the 

 Sacramento, and that the total number of species is much less than had 

 been imagined, the fall or spent fish of several kinds being considered 

 by the fishermen and residents along the river as distinct species. 



Mr. Stone was everywhere received with great cordiality, all the 

 business men of the region fully appreciating the importance of his 

 mission, and rendering all the aid in their power in performing it. 



The McCloud River station in 1875. — The geographical position and 

 general character of the McCloud Eiver salmon-hatching station has 

 been indicated in previous reports. It is situated on the western or 

 right bank of the McCloud Eiver, about two miles above its entrance 

 into the Pitt, a tributary of the Upper Sacramento. It is in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of Mount Shasta, and on the high-road from Eedding, 

 California to Oregon, stages passing it daily. The work of salmon 

 propagation here was first entered upon by Mr. Livingston Stone in 

 1872, beginning on a small scale, and with the extension of the buildings 



