THE a STREAMS oe oA ee ae 173 


purpose, it is very plain that the company did not fulfil their ae) of 
the contract. 
Notwithstanding these failures, in an act creating a board of commis- 
sioners of fisheries, provided for the construction of four additional fish- 
ways, but the commissioners deemed it advisable to construct only one 
as an experiment. This was located in the dam at Columbia (this being 
the first obstruction to the fish in coming up the stream) in a place 
most frequented by the shad in their attempts to pass the obstruction. 
A number of plans were submitted, many of them patented, but after 
careful consideration the commissioners concluded that a fishway for 
shad ought to conform as nearly as possible to the natural falls of those 
portions of the river which they were habitually ascending in their 
yearly journeys up the stream, and to avoid the difficulty presented to 
the fish in finding the fishway if built to extend below the dam, they 
also determined that it ought to be cut in the dam and extend into the 
pool above. 
When stopped by an obstruction like a dam shad run along the ob- 
struction seeking for an opening through which to continue their ascent. 
If this is not there, but a hundred feet below the dam, probably very 
few shad would find it, the commissioners therefore decided to erect a 
single trough 120 feet long by 60 feet wide; to cut this through into the 
dam and run it back into the pool above the dam about 100 feet; to pro- 
tect the sides of the fishway with strong abutments built up on both 
sides, and to run the water into the fishway by having the upper end of 
it sunk two feet below the crest of the dam. This arrangement weuld 
give a flow of two feet of water through the fishway when the pool above 
the dam is full but no water flowing over the dam itself. The inclina- 
tion of the fishway was but 34 feet in 120, so that in making the ascent 
shad would have to rise but one foot in thirty-five. 
This fishway was a theme of discussion for a year or two after it was 
built, and the main point to be discovered was its utility and adapt- 
ability for the purpose intended, which could only be shown by the 
actual passage of fish through the channel. 
While the fish commissioners frankly admitted that the work was 
experimental they had no hesitation in expressing their firm belief, de- 
rived from responsible citizens, as well as by careful experiment, that 
during the season shad had actually found their way to the waters above 
the dam: through the fishway. 
On the other hand practical fishermen and a number of reputable citi- 
zens declared their conviction that the shad alleged to have been taken 
from the river at various points above Columbia passed the obstruction 
at that place through an opening in the breast of the dam caused by 
ice carried down by the spring freshets. 
In the spring of 1875 fully one-third of the Columbia dam was pros- 
trated by the flood and floating ice, and during the following season shad 
