THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
Big OPEN GEA: 

Although the area of Pennsylvania is large and her streams numer- 
ous, there are only two outlets for the water which falls upon her east- 
ern surface. ‘The water shed really commences out of the state, and, 
after following a long and tortuous line through her territory, ends be- 
yond the limits of the commonwealth. Of the two great water courses 
of the eastern slope the Susquehanna river, with its large and important 
branches, famous in song and story, is well worthy of taking front rank 
among the finest natural shad streams in the country. The extent of 
this river, including its tributaries, can be best understood by the fol- 
lowing distances: From the New York state line on the North Branch to 
the mouth of the river the distance is about two hundred and sixty 
miles. From the mouth of Bennett’s branch of the Sinnemahoning to 
Northumberland is something over one hundred miles. From Clear- 
field to the mouth of the Sinnemahoning is about thirty-five miles. 
From Hollidaysburg to the mouth of the Juniata is about one hundred 
miles, and from Bedford to the Raystown branch of the Juniata the dis- 
tance is over sixty miles. Estimating the tributaries (the Swatara, the 
Codorous and the Conodoguinet) at eighty miles, and we have a dis- 
tauce by the thread of the streams of six hundred and thirty-five miles. 
Ever since the appearance of the white man on its banks the Susque- 
hanna has been noted for the quality of the shad (the most important of 
the food fishes indigenous to Pennsylvania) taken from it, and within 
the memory of many persons now living the river is celebrated for the 
quantity of this delicious fish, taken fifty or sixty years ago when the 
catches at the different fisheries for several hundred miles along this 
stream were sufficiently large not only to supply the immediate wants 
of the inhabitants of the counties bordering on the river, but enough 
also for salting down a year’s supply, not to speak of the number taken 
a distance to exchange for salt and other necessaries of life. 
It is interesting to learn from collections made by the Wyoming His- 
torical and Geological Society that beyond a doubt the Indians, for years 
before the white people thought of settling on the upper stretches of 
the Susquehanna, caught shad there in large quantities. An occasional 
stone net-sinker can yet be found on the flats along the river, and it is 
said that the fragments of Indian pottery unearthed show unmistakable 
markings with the vertebrze of the shad. Some of the early settlers are 
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