

10 



and we still had over forty alive and in good condition. All the other 

 fish were in splendid order. We had ice and water enough on board to 

 tal^e us, if necessary, to the Sierra Nevada — certainly with what sup- 

 plies we could get in the Wasatch Mountains, where the water is good. 

 The circumstance of the tish having lived so well up to this time, gave 

 us a good deal of confidence, and we were encouraged to hope that they 

 would continue to do well to the end of their journey. 



'• x\fter leaving Omaha we stowed away as well as we could the im- 

 mense amount of ice we had on the car, and having regulated the tem- 

 perature of all the tanks, and aerated the water all around, we made our 

 tea and were sitting down to dinner, when suddenly there came a terrible 

 crash, and tanks, ice, and eveiything in the car seemed to strike us in 

 every direction. We were, every one of us, at once wedged in by the 

 heavy weights upon us, so that we could not move or stir. A moment 

 after, the car began to fill rapidl}^ wnth water, the heavy weights upon 

 us began to loosen, and, in some unaccountable way, we were washed 

 out into the river. Swimming around our car, we climbed up on one end 

 of it, which was still out of water, and looked around to see where we 

 were. We found our car detached from the train, both couplings having 

 parted. The tender was out of sight, and the upper end of our car 

 resting on it. The engine was three fourths under water, and one man 

 in the engine cab crushed to death. Two men were floating down the 

 swift current in a drowning condition, and the balance of the train still 

 stood on the track, with the forward car within a very few inches of 

 the water's edge. The Westinghouse air-brake had saved the train. If 

 we had been without it, the destruction would have been fearful. 



"One look w^as sufiicient to show that the contents of the aquarium 

 car were a total loss. JSIo care or labor had been spared iu bringing the 

 fish to this point, and now, almost on the verge of success, everytiiing 

 was lost. 



"I immediately telegraphed the state of affairs to Mr. S. E. Throck- 

 morton, Chairman of the California Fish Commissioners, and to Honor- 

 able Spencer P. Baird, the head of the United States Fish Commission 

 at Washington. I received instructions, bj^ telegraph, the next morn- 

 ing, to return East immediately, with my assistants, and take on a 

 shipment of young shad to California, under the auspices of the United 

 btates Fish Commission. 



"In pursuaijce of these instructions, I went East, and having obtained 

 forty thousand young siiad from the New York State Hatching Works, 

 at Castleton, on the Hudson, I left Albany a second time, at eleven o'clock 

 and thirty minutes p. M, on the twenty-fifth of June, eighteen hundred 

 and sevent^^-three, in company with Mr. W. T. Perrin and Mr. Myron 

 Green, my assistants on the aquarium car. We were also accompanied, 

 as far as Omaha, on this trip, by Mr. H. M. Webster, whose experience 

 in carrying live snad was, in this instance, of the greatest value. 



"On our arrival at Ogdeu, Utah, I left five thousand of the shad, in 

 first rate order, in charge of Mr. Eockwooii, Superintendent of Fisheries 

 at Salt Lake City, to be introduced into Great Salt Lake, and continued 

 with the other thirty-five thousand to Sacramento, California, where we 

 arrived at half-past one in the afternoon of the second day of Jul}^ the 

 fish appearing in every respect as fresh and lively as when they leit the 

 Hudson a week before. 



" We deposited them that night, at ten minutes past nine o'clock, in 

 the Sacramento liiver, just above the railroad bridge, at Tehama, the 



