19 



Avcighiug from two to thirty pounds, iiro takeu daily and sold all along 

 the road, as high np as Spanishtown, at seventy-five cents per pound. 

 These fish are oul}^ taken during the spawning season, thej^ being a deep 

 water fish, and go out to sea in March. Three miles up the Peseadero 

 stream— which is about four feet wide and a foot deep, at present — is B. 

 Ilayvrard's steam sawmill, and three miles further up is Anderson's saw- 

 mill, run by a turbine wheel, having a well constructed dam, built of 

 hewn logs, well secured right across the creek. The dam is twenty feet 

 long and about ten feet high, built in eighteen hundred and sixty-two, 

 and all the Avater from above passes at present through the sluiceway at 

 the turbine ■wheel. As the water has never been half way up to the 

 top of this dam, since it was built, no fish have ever passed. A sluice 

 box with stop waters in it for fish could be introduced through this dam 

 near its base and outside the sluicev/aj' for the wheel, this being the 

 only place where the box could reach the water below, as all the rest of 

 the bed of the stream is dry. Large quantities of sawdust and blocks 

 are deposited in the stream below the dam; fish are found dead, their 

 eyes eaten out by the strong poisonous acids in the Avater, and their 

 bodies covered beneath the skin with disgusting blisters, like the small 

 pox, whilst the inside is as black as ink. The Avaters are rendered at 

 times AAdiolly unfit for use. Eight miles further up this stream is Vv^olf 's 

 steam saAvmill, the lumber from Avhich is hauled out to the eastward, 

 whilst the saAvdust is conA^ej'ed doAA^i the stream, fatal to the fish and 

 to the interests of eveiybody. There is but one sentiment existing 

 among the settlers along the streams, and it is this: that they haA'o 

 arrived at a point Avhere forbearance ceases to be a Adrtue, and have 

 resolved to exhaust all legal measures, by their united efi'orts and similar 

 means to protect their interests against the oppressiA'e and persistent 

 practice of the mill oAvners in dumping the saAv dust into the streams, 

 Avhereby the AA'hole community beloAv suffer, some hundreds and others 

 thousands of dollars. The eft'ects of the saAA-mills, during eighteen or 

 twenty years, are scarcel}^ perceptible in these almost impenetrable for- 

 ests, and the united efforts of many mills for the next twenty years will 

 be required before the Avoodman's axe AAdll liaA^e wrung from the settlers 

 of this nature's retreat in her solitude that beautiful praj'er of ' Wood- 

 man, spare that tree.' 



"I have communicated Avith many of the settlers along the banks of 

 all these streams, and haA^e the experience of the oldest settlers in this 

 part of the country, and there can be but one conclusion in regard to 

 ihe fish interest of these streams, and that is that the redwood saAvdust 

 poisons the AA^ater, and unless some other method be adopted to get rid 

 of it, such as burning it or repairing roads with it, there AAdll not be a 

 breed of trout left in a few years. Where thousands were taken daily 

 (thirteen hundred by one person), noAV scarcely a trout can bo seen. If 

 there are laAvs to protect them I can see no good reason for not enforcing 

 them, and if this Ise done every man's table in this district will be 

 abundantly supplied AAdth trout — a healthy and cheap article of food — 

 AAdiile large quantities Avill find their Avay, as a luxury, to the rich man's 

 table at a distance, so long as these streams shall iioAv ' from the moun- 

 tain to the sea.' " 



From the report of Mr. HasAvell on the Truckee Eiver and Lake Tahoe 

 AA-e make the following extracts. He says: 



