136 American Fisheries Society 



vide Science, April 22, 1890). Along much of the Pacific coast the 

 sea-bottom descends to 2000, 2500, or 2700 fathoms, within 50 

 miles from shore. A platform, say 10 miles wide, slopes to 100 

 fathoms depth, and the edge of this submarine shelf is scalloped 

 by a series of underwater fjords or inlets, at least 30 in number, 

 along the Californian coast alone. Many of these sloping valleys 

 are in direct line with the rivers on land, some being really a con- 

 tinuation of the other, as at Monterey and Carmel ; but others do 

 not penetrate the dry land as, e. g., opposite King Peak and San 

 Pallo. Some geologists regard these chasms or channels con- 

 tinuing from the sea on to the land-superficies, as dislocations and 

 faults, and produced by drainage denudation; but this cannot be 

 for the general evenness of the littoral plateau on either side of 

 these submarine gorges is most marked. It is necessary to study 

 the form and the drainage features of the adjacent land in order to 

 decide the undoubted origin of these valleys. If the Salmon were 

 originally a sea fish, pure and simple, and had the established habit 

 of moving inshore to spawn in the shallows at the head of the 

 under-sea valleys and channels, into most of which freshwater 

 streams would pour, rendering the upper parts brackish, and during 

 the rains and snows of winter, almost fresh, that habit would 

 continue after the raising of the coastal shelf had begun. Migratory 

 birds still adhere to their old established routes in spite of changes 

 in the surface of the earth, indeed, the late Professor Alfred 

 Newton, of Cambridge, England, often recalled the faithful 

 persistence of woodcock in nesting near a town in the County of 

 Norfolk. The wooded copse where he saw the nest when a boy, 

 was partly cut down, houses were built, new streets laid out, but 

 years after in the same spot he found, after these changes, the wood- 

 cock continued to nest and rear their young. Their annual 

 migration to and from England continued not only to the same 

 county and the same town; but to the identical corner of a small 

 bushy copse, notwithstanding that all the surroundings and 

 familiar features had altered. Is there not every ground for 

 holding the opinion that salmon are as true as birds to their 

 breeding resorts?* 



* In opposition to the view, which I here advocate, the case has been 

 triumphantly offered of salmon resorting to streams where no salmon could 

 previously have spawned. Apart from the difficulty of proving that no sal- 

 mon ever frequented such streams, I would point out that living organisms 

 generally to avoid overcrowding migrate to new areas. The surplus must 

 do so or the young will perish. 



