3 14 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



This condition of the water does not always result 

 from the same cause, but I am satisfied that it results 

 from one single cause in the pure water lakes of the 

 mountain regions of the Catskills. In the Bay of 

 Qninte the blooming of the water evidently comes from 

 the spores of an aquatic weed or plant which abounds 

 in all the shallow waters of that bay. So far as I have 

 had the opportunity for observation almost every lake, 

 pond or water abounds in aquatic weeds peculiar to 

 itself. Where the water is not over about 4 feet in 

 depth these plants abound in a large amount of insect 

 life, and where the water is deeper there is, as a rule, 

 an entire absence of animal life. In the waters of the 

 Catskills, with which I am quite familiar, I have never 

 known of a single case where these weeds or plants 

 throw out spores of any kind which cloud the water. 

 Mr. Cornelius Van Brunt, who is quite an eminent 

 misroscopist, and I, some twenty years ago or more, 

 took particular pains to find out what caused the cloud- 

 ing of the waters in two of the lakes of the Catskills, 

 Balsam Lake and Willewemoc Lake, and in both cases 

 we found that this clouding was caused by the spores 

 of the fresh-water sponge, which abounded in both 



"The waters of these two lakes, like most of the 

 lakes of the Catskills, were very pure, being spring 

 water, and on the bottom of the lakes, at a depth of 

 about 2 feet or 2,\ feet, this fresh-water sponge existed 

 in considerable abundance, each sponge being not Over 

 2 or 2-J inches in length by I or 2 inches in width, and 

 when taken in the hand and squeezed there seemed to 

 be nothing of them. The clouding of the lakes was 

 found to extend down from 6 to 12 inches, and to be 

 produced by millions of spores thrown out by the fresh- 



