Ward. — Elimination of Stream Pollution in New York 1 1 



But now as to a new test; the right measure of the condition 

 of a piece of water is to be determined not by experimenting 

 with that water on fish, but by observing the sum total of the 

 living conditions in the water, and those living conditions may be 

 determined by the examination and enumeration of the organisms 

 that are to be found there. 



Before I come to that, however, I want to say a word about 

 one other thing. If you note these people who are arguing as 

 to the harmless character of ordinary conditions in the streams, 

 you will find that they very frequently say: "We know that fish 

 are not very abundant there, and over-catching is the real reason 

 for the diminution in the fish population of the individual stream." 

 Now that sounds very true, and such a man will make a splendid 

 argument as to the increase in the number of fishermen, the 

 increase in the fondness for fishing and the increase in the means 

 of getting about that has placed waters which formerly could 

 hardly be reached in a week's vacation now almost within reach 

 of a day's fishing trip. His conclusion is unassailable; the fish 

 have been caught off. But, gentlemen, nobody has been catching 

 the other organisms in the water; nobody has gone after insect 

 larvae, or if they have been catching dobson or helgramites or 

 something else for bait, they have not been catching the Crustacea 

 or the microscopic organisms of the water. If you take a pure 

 stream and examine it under natural conditions, you will find 

 it includes a rich and varied life ; this is a fact with which you are 

 perfectly familiar. There are green plants growing on stones; 

 there are minute green plants floating in the water; there are 

 little worms in the water; and other minute organisms of various 

 kinds; if you take a net of bolting cloth you can collect a very 

 considerable amount of that very stuff in all but in the most 

 swiftly flowing streams. It is hardly necessary to state that that 

 material which we speak of as plankton, constitutes the funda- 

 mental fish food of the water. 



Now what about the food question? If the food is driven 

 away from the water, if food is killed off, the fish will disappear; 

 they will either be driven away or be starved out, and there is 

 no possible alternative in the situation. Hence the simplest test 

 in the world is to examine the waters so as to determine the 

 existence of all those organisms that are characteristic of pure 



