American Fisheries Sociefx 169 



antimony, but a low grade p}Tites — still cnmnierciallv 

 worked, now 1400 feet in depth — which furnished the chests 

 of "fool's gold" which the school histories tell us some of the 

 early explorers hopefully carried back with them to England. 



Another colonist from Jamestown came still higher up the 

 river, and spent a season among the friendly Indians on the 

 Eastern Branch opposite ^^'ashinglon where he saw taken at 

 night, off the site of the present steel works on Giesboro 

 Point, a great catch of sturgeon. And Captain Smith, of 

 some unlocated point says : "There was once taken '?2 stur- 

 geons at a draught and at another 68." However, net fish- 

 ermen resented the sturgeon's destructiveness when caught 

 in their gill nets and seines, and waged war on young and 

 old; carrying a read}- l)illet always to dispatch tliem. Stur- 

 geon fishing was up to thirty years ago quite an industry at 

 points down the ri^•er ; a few are }et picked up in drift nets 

 in the Potomac, and their capture is of considerable import- 

 ance in Chesapeake Ba}', but they have practically disap- 

 peared fr(^m the river where the}' were once so plent}-. 



John Colegate, before the fifties, one of the oldest writers 

 on fly-fishing on this river, tells of catching shad with the fly 

 at Long Bridge, and incidentall}- that the shad averaged then 

 14 pounds in weight. They now liardl}- a^-crage above AV-y 

 pounds and are scarce at that. 



Thomas Hariot, in 1588, said: "For Foure monethes of 

 ihe yeere February, ^klarch, April and Alay there are plentie 

 of sturgeons and also in the same monethes of Herrings, 

 some of the ordinar}- l)iggeness as ours in hjigland, l)ut the 

 most part [sliad] farre greater, of eighteene, twentie inches, 

 and some two foote in length and better.' Both these kindes 

 of fishe in those monethes are most plentifull, and in l)est 

 season, which we foimde to bee most delicate and ])leasaunt 

 meate." 



Notwithstanding the efforts of the Fish Commission in 

 Hatching shad and stocking the ri\er — which is prolonging 

 the industry — it is naturally bound, with the great increase 

 m population and the fences of nets all the wa}- to the ocean, 



