234 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
comparatively high stage of water. The leaky aprons wasted 
water so fast that they became a trap for fish somewhat after the 
manner of an Indian eel-basket. Fish allowing themselves to 
float down through the gate were likely to be caught in eracks 
or stranded on the plank. As little or no water flowed over the 
lower end of the aprons which were close to or above the surface 
of the stream, no fish could pass up. 
As now rebuilt, however, the dam is twelve feet high and 
maintained for storage of water to be used in driving logs 
through the stream and also as a reserve for supplying water for 
power to mills lower down the St. Croix. The gates are there- 
fore closed during a considerable part of the year and the stream 
then becomes a small brook with most of its spawning gravels 
laid bare. During the driving seag6n, on the contrary, the gates 
are opened and the stream is a river, broad, deep and swift, while 
the logs are being sent through, to become a brook again when 
for any reason the gates are closed. In case of a jam of logs and 
sometimes for other reasons the gates are all closed suddenly and 
fish are then very Hable to be stranded in little pools where they 
must die as the water drains away. In fall, when water is needed 
for the mills, the gates are opened and fish on the stream to 
spawn find just the conditions they want on the gravels. Later 
in the winter the gates are closed to let the lake fill, the gravels 
are again laid bare and eggs deposited there are of course des- 
troyed. As thus managed the stream is evidently a poor place 
for fish, young or old, and the problem is either to modify the 
management or get the fish off the stream. Each gate in the 
dam as now built is in too sections; a top part to be lifted when 
the water is high and a bottom part three and a half feet high, 
which may also be raised at a lower stage of water. During the 
high water this three and a half fall over the lower part of the 
gate upon an apron forms a complete barrier to fish passing up 
but none, of course, to their going down. And this period of high 
water will be from early spring until fall. Perhaps it may prove 
unnecessary to raise the lower sections of the gates at all, in which 
case the barrier is permanent. ‘To be sure of getting the salmon 
up over the dam then, they must be carried or a fishway must be 
provided through which they can swim up. An effort was made 
the past fall (1905) to trap and net fish on the stream and carry 
