Fish Cidturists' Association. 43 



oring to enter the chute, for it must be remembered that if the water 

 above were arrested, the water below the dam would back up the chute, 

 nearly, if not quite, to the head of the incline, thus impeded, then, the 

 velocity must be considerably less than ten miles an hour. It cannot 

 indeed, by an}' possibility, be so great as ten miles an hour. For a body 

 falling in vacuo at the third foot does not exceed that velocit}', as the 

 rule for falling bodies is Fs 64.333= U where s equals space in feet fallen 

 and V the velocity in feet per second. Here the space in feet fallen is 

 three, and this subjected to the rules gives about fourteen feet per second 

 for the velocit}', which is less than ten miles per hour as any school boy 

 may easil}' ascertain with a slate and pencil. Now then can a shad stem 

 a current of ten miles an hour? If he can, then either of these chutes 

 he can ascend easily, if he loiU. It is easy to conceive that although the 

 shad can ascend a chute, that he ma}' not choose to do so. For he is an 

 extremely timorous fish, and unless the chute be made attractive to him 

 he may avoid it or be scared awa}' from it. But a chute from fort}' to 

 sixty feet wide ought not to repel him, and one still wider of course 

 would be less repulsive. It is fair to suppose that width would attract 

 him, and that having in Pennsylvania adopted a capacious width, we are 

 at least on the road to a successful fishwaj'. As to the velocity a shad 

 attains in swimming, it may, and probably does, reach fifty miles an 

 hour. The velocity then of the Pennsylvania chute cannot be an obstacle 

 to him. The reason why shad did not ascend the Pennsylvania chutes in 

 large numbers is, that they were not there to ascend. Go back of 1867, 

 and ascertain when there was any catch of 50,000 shad immediately 

 below the Columbia Dam. Come this side of 1867, and in 1871 there 

 was a catch of some 100,000 at least, below the dam ; and in 1873 we 

 have a catch above the dam estimated, no doubt fairly, at 50,000, whilst 

 there was an ordinary catch immediately below the dam. As stated then 

 the reason why shad did not ascend the fishway in large numbers in the 

 early years following 1867 was, that they were not there. They had to 

 be made first, and where were they made? Above the Columbia Dam, 

 assuredly, whilst their mothers could not have got there in sufficient 

 numbers had they not been aided by the early chute. There is not a 

 navigation chute in the river that will not admit shad. But these chutes 

 are not located in the right places, they are not in the runwa}'s. A few 

 get up at Columbia, a few at Clark's ferry — these are the first two dams, 

 but none get up at Shamokin, the third dam, the navigation chute of 

 which is as easy as the other two and the dam not more than a foot 

 higher. Now both the fishways in the Columbia Dam are well located. 

 The earliest runs of shad take the. right centre of the river ; the latter 

 runs take the left centre of it — (right and left in describing rivers are 



