Prince. — A Perfect Fish Pass 55 



DISCUSSION 



Mb. N. R. Buller, of Pennsylvania: The question of a fishway 

 is one of the nightmares to the Commissioner of Fisheries of Penn- 

 sylvania and has caused us a great deal of thought and study in tlie 

 past two years. The Susquehanna River has always heen a shad river 

 until two years ago, when the Carlbury dam, sixty-five feet high and 

 three-quarters of a mile in length, was completed. There is a Kale 

 fishway placed in the dam, but, on examination of the dam, carried 

 on during the migratory season of the shad for three days a week, 

 we failed to find one fish that had entered that fishway. After finding 

 that the Kale fishway has not been satisfactory, the power company 

 has started and nearly finished a fishway from plans furnished by 

 the • Department. That is a natural way, sixty feet wide, following 

 down over the breast of the dam, widening out to a hundred feet 

 where it catches the trend of the river, and is built of concrete and 

 large boulders. This power company has met the Department of 

 Fisheries more than half way at every request made of them, for 1 

 assume they want to put more dams in the river. We are very anx- 

 iously awaiting next spring to see whether this fishway will be 

 adequate or not. 



Mr. John W. Titcomb, of Vermont: I want to ask Prof. Prince 

 about taking down and putting up the props. For instance, I want 

 a fishway to take care of the spring spawning of the fish. In that 

 case, on account of heavy freshets just at the time of assembling, tne 

 fishway would have to be installed in the fall, and if installed in 

 the fall to carry it through the freshet period, it might as well be 

 there the year through. 



Prof. Prince: The fish pass is not put up until about to be used. 

 Instead of being actually where the fall is, if necessary it could be 

 put in a quieter place, 50 or 100 yards below, and a channel made 

 so that when the fish have got up to the pass they will go along the 

 channel over the dam. 



Mr. Titcomb: That would have to be put in in the fall; you cannot 

 do work of that sort in the spring with a freshet of two or three 

 feet of water flowing over the dam. I am very sceptical about this 

 matter, and I think if there are fishways supposed to be practical 

 for commissioners, to expend quite a little money, if necessary, to 

 find out whether they are doing anything or not. One year, the Con- 

 necticut River had a fishway put in costing $60,000 and not a fish 

 went through it. 



Prof. Dyche, of Kansas: In Kansas the Legislature passed a law 

 four years ago, making it obligatory that dams be furnished with fish- 

 ways and giving about six months to effect this. They called upon 

 me to furnish plans. I got two or three good engineers to assist 

 me, and finally, we got plans for a fishway which are published in 

 the proceedings of this society. Then I built about a dozen or fifteen 

 of these fishways. 



To make the fish start through the fishway basin has been a failure. 

 I wrote a public letter stating that I had been unable to build a fish- 

 way that was adequate, and that I didn't think it was fair to require 

 owners of dams to build fishways when I could not guarantee them 

 to be of value after they were built. The people living above these 

 dams are sending in petitions and worrying about the fishways. 



We have one fishway that the fish do go up. This was built by 

 Wells, State Engineer, and myself, at Wichita, Kansas, where a dam 

 was across a little river with three feet extra rise; when the water 

 was high, it was let down; when low, it was lifted up. 



