38 Report of the American 



may be bred as easily and in mnch the same manner as the shad ; special 

 effort will probably be made during the coming year toward increasing 

 the sup^^lj' of this most valuable fish. 



THE FISHWAYS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



BY JAMES WORRALL 



\_Read before the American Fish Cidturists' Association.^ 

 Some attention having been drawn to the Fishwa3-s constructed in the 

 Columbia Dam, on the Susquehanna River, in the State of Pennsylvania, 

 in consequence of the fact that no work of the kind as yet erected in the 

 United States has been known by ocular demonstration to have permitted 

 shad (Alosa Prastabilis.,) to have passed through it, and having been 

 connected with the Pennsylvania Fishways from the commencement of 

 the restoration movement, the undei'signed hopes that a few words in the 

 form of a paper, to be read before this Association at its present meet- 

 ing, will not be uninteresting as an endeavor toward the establishment 

 of the facts as they have occurred. 



The restoration movement in Pennsylvania originated in a Convention 

 of citizens, most of them riparian to the Susquehanna, which assembled 

 in Harrisburg early in 1866, and while the Legislature was in session. 

 A bill was drawn up in this Convention which subsequent!}' became a 

 law, requiring Fishways to be erected in the dams of the Susquehanna 

 and its tributaries ; containing other provisions for the restoration and 

 protection of the fisheries ; and providing also for the appointment of a 

 Commissioner who was required to be a civil engineer, whose duty it 

 was, amongst other prescribed duties, to plan and have these fishways 

 constructed. It so happened that vested rights precluded the erection 

 of fishways in any dam on the river except the Columl>ia Dam ; so the 

 Commissioner's attention was exclusively confined to the Columbia Dam. 

 The undersigned was appointed Commissioner, under the act, b}' Gov. 

 Curtin, and iunnediately proceeded to the performance of his duties. 

 His onlj' qualification at the time of his appointment was derived from 

 his experience as a civil engineer. He did not know the form required 

 for such a structure, although he believed himself competent to construct 

 the work as soon as the form could be ascertained. The only successful 

 flsliwa}' at that time known, Avas the Foster Fishway, and to that, there- 

 fore, his attention was naturally directed. Most, if not all the Foster 

 Fishways at that time constructed protruded from the dam down stream. 



