360 SALMON RIVERS 



guardians, buying neighboring property and 

 stocking the river with fry. I believe he stated 

 that he had placed in the river altogether, at dif- 

 ferent times, over one hundred thousand young 

 salmon fry, and all this with apparently no result. 

 He was not then getting any more salmon than he 

 did when he had first bought the river years be- 

 fore. 



We drove down from Quebec in the afternoon 

 with a remarkably fine pair of horses of his own, 

 I remember, and in the evening I inspected the 

 mouth of the river. There was nothing in or 

 hear the mouth that could interfere with the entry 

 of the fish. Next morning early we drove up to 

 the falls, where I was provided with a canoe. On 

 examing this first pool just below the falls I 

 found that the whole bottom of this pool was cov- 

 ered with sawdust and other debris. In some 

 places this was three to four feet thick, and the 

 stench when I dredged some of it up was worse 

 than that of a sewer. The other portions of the 

 river from the falls to the mouth were not quite so 

 bad, but I noticed that the bottom was very rocky 

 for the greater part of the way. There was not 

 in the whole of the river a decent place where 

 twenty salmon could spawn. On making enquir- 

 ies I found that all this sawdust and debris came 

 from some mill or mills situated at St. Fereol, 

 above the falls. This was not very encouraging 

 information to give to Mr. Smith, but I told him 



