14 Report of the American 



HATCHING APPAEATUS AND HATCHING HOUSE. 



Our hatching apparatus was simple but very satisfactor3^ The wheel, 

 which was twelve feet in diameter, with an eleven feet shaft, took the 

 water from the river into the flume. The flume carried the water about 

 fifty yards to the filtering tanks. The filtering tanks conve3'ed the water 

 in the distributing spout. The distributing spout discharged it into the 

 hatching troughs. 



The hatching troughs were placed parallel with each other, at right 

 angles with the distributing spout, as is the usual custom in hatching 

 houses. There were ten rows of troughs placed in pairs with a passage 

 way between each pair, and in each row were three troughs, each 

 sixteen feet long, placed end to end, one a little lower than the other, so 

 as to give a fall from the first to the second, and from the second to the 

 third, of a few inches. The troughs were on an average about breast 

 high, and were furnished with covers made by stretching white cotton 

 cloth on a light frame of wood. The whole, excluding of course the 

 flume and wheel, was surmounted by a large and substantial tent, sixty 

 b}' thirty feet. Most of the eggs rested on the charcoal bottom of the 

 troughs, but I used traj^s to a considerable extent, formed of iron wire 

 netting coated with asphaltum, and found them perfectly satisfactory. I 

 also used b}' way of experiment and with Seth Green's permission, half 

 a dozen of his shad hatching boxes, anchoring them in the river current. 

 They worked so well that I have no doubt that in a warm climate like 

 that of California, salmon eggs could be hatched in these boxes with 

 perfectl}" satisfactory results, which adds another merit to this very simple 

 but wonderfully effective invention. The only difficulty which we experi- 

 enced in their use was the inconvenience" of getting at them and of pick- 

 ing out the dead eggs. On account of this inconvenience I would prefer 

 the stationary hatching troughs, if I had vay choice, but I should feel 

 perfectly confident of hatching successfully any number of salmon eggs 

 with nothing but the shad boxes. 



The hatching house, or more properly the hatching tent, contained our 

 work bench and tools, and was the place where all the carpenters' work 

 was done. It was always in the da}" time the most bright and cheerful, 

 as it was the busiest spot about our pleasant camp. The happy murmur 

 of the rippling water, the busy sounds of the workmen's tools, the bright, 

 soft light difliised through the canvas covering of the tent, the cool river 

 breeze gently pouring in through the raised walls of the tent, the active 

 forms of the workmen, the thought that millions of tiny creatures were 

 coming into being under the white covers of the troughs, all these things 

 lent a charm to this spot, which made it very attractive and an extremely 



