Centennial Meeting. 35 



from the amount of fish caught, the fact that the number of fish 

 that passed over the dam, using the fish-way as a means of 

 passage, was in the neighborhood of twenty or thirty thousand. 

 The extreme timidity of the shad is one of the difficulties with 

 which any person undertaking the erection of a fish-way has to 

 contend. And I believe that that is the source of difficulty 

 with regard to all our fish-ways, that the shad are afraid to 

 attempt the ascent. The descent in our fish-way, by reason of 

 its very great length — one hundred and twenty feet — is so slight, 

 and the current therefore so slow, that men have been known to 

 pole a canoe up the descent for some distance. 



Col. James Worrall of Pennsylvania gave some information 

 in regard to the fish-ways of that State. He stated that the 

 different inventions of fish-ways were already, in his opinion, 

 sufficient in number for the accommodation of the various fish 

 species, and that these inventions had been supplied in many 

 rivers of this country. Having been connected with the work of 

 construction of the dam at Columbia, Pennsylvania, he felt at 

 liberty to state some of the results that have followed from the 

 completion of that work, though, as yet, these residts were not 

 fully proven. As stated by the gentleman who last spoke 

 [Mr. Reeder], the ascent to the fish-way is so gradual that a 

 canoe can be poled up it without difficulty, the water not moving 

 in it at a greater rate of speed than eight or nine miles an hour. 

 One of the great troubles is to get the seine-fishermen away from 

 the front of the fish- ways, as they catch a large proportion of all 

 the fish that come through. A number of shad have been caught 

 further up the Susquehanna above the dam, thus showing that 

 the fish had gone through the fish-ways. The speaker then 

 referred to the liberality of the Legislature of Pennsylvania in 

 providing for improvements, such as Columbia Dam, intended to 



