clxxxvii 



necessity for taking- active steps ; at the same time he admitted injury 

 must eventually ensue. The Officiating Collector, Mr. Armstrong, how- 

 ever, continues, " I venture, with much diffidence, to dissent from 

 Mr. McPherson's opinion, and would earnestly urge the necessity of 

 immediate action in this matter. I think that if effectual measures 

 of remedy be not now taken, every one interested in the prosperity 

 of this district will regret it afterwards. I am certain a wholesale 

 destruction of fine fish of full growth is day by day g'oing on at the 

 Mahanuddi weirs, and what is worse than this, the young fry perish in 

 numbers beyond calculation." He also remarked upon the great de- 

 struction so easily carried on by the clumsiest contrivances below the 

 weirs. Mr. Levinge, the Chief Engineer of these irrigation works, 

 observing 1 upon the obstruction caused by these same weirs, says, 

 "the real injury to the fisheries is probably caused by the wholesale 

 slaughter of fish by the natives whilst thus temporarily stopped, 

 and I think it would be quite proper if an Act were passed, render- 

 ing it illegal to haul a net or otherwise destroy fish within a distance 

 of half a mile below a weir during the season at which fish migrate/' 

 Mr. Four acres, in charge of the Naraje weir, observed, " the fish are 

 certainly stopped for about eight months of the year/'' Mr. McMillan, 

 Executive Engineer in charge of the Jobra or great Mahanuddi weir, 

 reported, "to a certain extent the weirs have enabled the fishermen to 

 catch more fish than they did before during the dry weather. * * Below 

 the weir the fish are taken, as it were, wholesale, and great destruction 

 takes place," I will here mention that the weirs on the Mahanuddi 

 and its branches are the following-, proceeding down-stream from Na- 

 raje, which is 67J miles from the sea, where the river divides into two 

 portions : the one termed the Kajuri, passing Cuttack on one side, de- 

 scends to the sea; the other division, under the name of the Mahanuddi, 

 runs past the other side of the town en route to the ocean. It having 

 been found that too large an amount of water was running to waste 

 down the Kajuri, besides causing extensive injuries, due to the river 

 flooding the country, a bund or weir was thrown across it a little 

 below its head, so as to direct more water into the Mahanuddi branch 

 of the main stream: this of course decreased the supply in the Kajuri 

 to the same amount as it increased it in the Mahanuddi branch. A 

 mile below Cuttack another weir termed the Jobra, 60 miles from the 

 sea and 6,400 feet long and 12J feet high, was constructed across the 

 Mahanuddi, thus deepening the river on that side of the town and for 

 some distance up-stream, whilst near this second weir the river gives 

 off a third or the Baropa branch, which also has a weir across its head. 

 ~ personal investigation I most unhesitatingly deny that breeding- 



sh ever pass up the narrow under-sluices of these weirs, but those in 

 the centre of the Jobra and Midnapur weirs, from 45 to 50 feet wide 

 rhen open, can cause but little impediment to the ascent of fish ; it is a 

 dde open gap than which nothing can be better. But it is whilst the 

 ish are waiting* for them to be opened, and at such times as they are 

 )bstructed at these weirs, that their slaughter goes on ; likewise in the 

 ry months, when the spent ones and their fry are endeavouring to 

 jturn to the sea, and all the waterway is closed against them, that 

 injury is caused. The destruction of large fish when in season would 



