
THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 175 
It was provided, however, that none of the fishways named in section 
three of the act should be prt under contract or constructed unless the 
said commissioners, or a majority of them, should, on or before the first 
day of June, in the year 1874, file a certificate with the Auditor General 
that in their opinion the fishways already constructed in the Columbia 
dam were successful and could be successfully used for the passsage of 
migratory fishes. 
On June 11, 1879, the legislature made an appropriation of $30,000 to 
carry into effect the provisions of that act which gave the commissioners 
authority to use fifteen thousand dollars thereof in the construction and 
remodeling of the fishways in the Columbia dam. 
The commissioners found on trial that there were difficulties in the 
way which they could not conquer without a greater command of means 
than the law allowed them, and they were thus prevented from carrying 
their experiments farther. 
The act of assembly approved July 2, 1885, appropriated $25,000 for 
four specific purposes, of which $9,000 was to be expended by the State 
Fish Commissioners in the establishment of a fishway below the Shamo- 
kin dam in the Susquehanna river. This was one of the perplexing 
problems which the new board was called upon to solve. Many paten- 
tees made application for a trial of their fishways, each inventor claim- 
ing decided superiority over all others. All of the models submitted, 
received a most careful examination, and the conclusion reached was, 
that all which gave promise of efficiency, were of such a costly charac- 
ter as to preclude any ideaof their adoption. At length the attention of 
the board was drawn to a Nova Scotia invention, the “ Rogers’ fishway,” 
which combined simplicity, durability and efficiency with comparative 
inexpensiveness. A personal inspection of a number of these fishways 
in Nova Scotia waters, where more than forty of them have been in suc- 
cessful use for a number of years past, demonstrated beyond a doubt 
that they possessed all the merit that was claimed for them. They had 
been introduced there, by and with the consent of the Dominion govern- 
ment, and had been found so effective, there is reason to believe that 
within a few years all the streams of that province in which the passage 
of anadromous fishes to their natural spawning grounds has been ob- 
structed will be supplied with them. The gaspereaux and salmon of 
the Nova Scotia rivers ascend those fishways freely, and it was the de- 
cided opinion of the patentee that shad would ascend them as readily as 
the salmon or the gaspereaux. So strong was his faith on that point, 
that he agreed to erect one of his fishways in the dam that spans the 
Susquehanna river at Columbia, at his own expense, and waiving all 
claims for pay until it was satisfactorily demonstrated that the fishway 
would successfully resist the destructive action of the ice freshets, and 
that shad in reasonable numbers would ascend it. As the board was 
deeply impressed with the importance of having two fishways erected 
