THE SALMON FISHER. 17 



seems certain, for experiments of the U. S. Fish Com- 

 mission have demonstrated that salmon planted in its 

 headwaters will endeavor to return there to spawn in 

 obedience to a well known instinct. But since Hud- 

 son's advent geological changes must have occurred 

 in upper tributaries to bar the passage to suitable 

 spawning grounds ; and besides, its present com- 

 paratively turbid condition, discolored as it is by 

 commerce, manufactories, and the wash of farm lands 

 lying along its entire length, is by no means as favor- 

 able to reproduction as when it was in its primitive 

 state. With the ascent facilitated by fishways, a 

 short time only will be necessary to demonstrate 

 whether the salmon desire to be permanently domi- 

 ciled. 



As to their northernmost range: We learn from 

 Lieut. Fred. Schwatka, who in 1887 crossed the di- 

 vide which lies northwest of Hudson Bay, and be- 

 tween it and the Arctic Ocean, that fish life was far 

 more abundant on the Arctic slope of the watershed 

 than on the Hudson Bay slope, although the latter, 

 like all sub-Arctic areas, is far from being the pisca- 

 torial desert which some persons suppose. Fish, lie 



