8 American Fisheries Society 



six, gas plants separately; nine, sulphite paper mills, and eleven, 

 canneries. There were also some specific suggestions made by 

 thirty of them with regard to methods by which the problem 

 might be investigated or places at which it could profitably receive 

 attention. 



Under the advice of the Commissioner, I took occasion to 

 visit a series of typical locations in the state, to see the effect of 

 a group of manufacturers of the same type, and the localities 

 selected included tanneries, sulphite paper mills and mills using 

 or producing chemicals. 



Now the natural objection to the demonstration of the exist - 

 ance of such wastes, and the seriousness of their effects, which 

 was supported by a mass of testimony, — the natural objection 

 to this is that it constitutes an unfortunate but a necessary and 

 inevitable accompaniment of the development of manufacturing. 

 But such a general argument as that is readily and perfectly met 

 when we consider for a moment the conditions that prevail in 

 other countries. When the manufacturer makes a statement to 

 you or to any other person, and you ask him if manufacturing is 

 as general, if population is as dense, in this country as it is in 

 England or Belgium or France or Germany, taking conditions 

 before the war, he will hardly venture to say that it is. We have 

 in none of our states reached the development of manufacturing, 

 we have in none of these states reached the density of population 

 which exists in those countries. And yet fishing in the streams 

 of the old world is better than it is in these streams in the manu- 

 facturing parts of the new world; and pollution at the present 

 time is much greater here than it is there. Much improvement, 

 as a matter of fact, has been made in the older parts of the world 

 in the course of the last half century in cleaning up the streams, 

 for they have paid attention to that, whereas of course we have 

 rather neglected the problem. 



In order to attack the difficulty properly it is necessary for 

 us to consider the essential factors which are concerned in it. 

 The situation is complex and not readily seen. If we go out to 

 study conditions on the land, we see them with our own eyes. 

 As we look at water its surface mirrors the beauty of the sur- 

 roundings, but hides some of the conditions beneath, and it requires 

 a very marked change in the character of the stream and the life 



