49° BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



in those waters and fish culture and fish-cultural distribution in general. This involves 

 not only an analysis of the data concerning the habits and local distribution of the fishes 

 and their relation to their environment, gathered during the investigation and desultory 

 observations, but a consideration of the history of angling and fish culture in those 

 waters. 



LOCAL GEOGRAPHY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE RANGELEY LAKES SYSTEM. 



The Rangeley Lakes lie in the western part of Maine, just below the forty-fifth 

 parallel of latitude; in fact, Cupsuptic Lake, at present a northern arm of Lower Rangeley, 

 or Mooselucmaguntic Lake, just impinges on that parallel. The general trend or flow 

 of the lakes is southwestward, discharging their waters into the Androscoggin River. 

 There are five large lakes in the chain, having an area of 64.59 square miles. The entire 

 drainage area, exclusive of that of the Magalloway River, is 635 square miles, making 

 the area drained by the iVndroscoggin at Errol Dam, the lowest of the storage dams, 

 situated about 5 miles below Umbagog Lake, 1,095 square miles. The total storage 

 of these five lakes is 21,357,358,000 cubic feet. They have an average elevation above 

 sea level of about 1,420 feet at high-water line. 



The Rangeley series comprises four, or, as sometimes denominated, 5, large lakes, 

 which are not upon the same level, as shown by the following statement: 



Feet (high-water line) 

 above sea level. 



Oquossoc, or Upper Rangeley Lake i, 517 



Mooselucmaguntic, or Lower Rangeley Lake i, 467. 41 



Molechunkamimk, or Upper Richardson Lake i, 448. 9 



Wellekennebacook, or Lower Richardson Lake i, 448. 9 



Umbagog Lake 1, 246. 3 



Cupsuptic Lake is practically a portion of Mooselucmaguntic, and Molechunka- 

 munk and Wellekennebacook really compose one body of water between the outlet of 

 Mooselucmaguntic and Middle Dam. A narrowing in the lake gives rise to the popular 

 designation of the two expansions as separate lakes. 



The surrounding country is mainly hilly, and, excepting immediately about Umbagog 

 and Upper Rangeley Lakes, is principally a vast forest, which has been more or less 

 modified by many years of lumbering operations and, to some extent, by forest fires. 

 Lumbering operations are still extensively carried on, with somewhat different objects 

 and certainly by different methods from those of olden times. The lakes and streams 

 have also been modified both for lumbering and milling purposes, and the lakes now 

 form the principal storage reservoir for the great mills all along the Androscoggin, 

 particularly at Berlin, N. H., Rumford Falls, Livermore Falls, Auburn, Lewiston, and 

 Brunswick, Me. 



Such modification of the physical conditions could not fail to have had effect in one 

 way or another on the fauna of the lakes. Changes in the level of the lakes necessarily 

 would tend to change the feeding and breeding places of the fishes, and dams interfere 

 with their migration from one lake to another. 



Wells stated in 1869 that there were four dams in the Rangeley chain — one at the 

 foot of Rangeley (Oquossoc), 10 feet high with 4-foot head of water; one. Upper Dam, 

 at the foot of Lower Rangeley (Mooselucmaguntic), 20 feet high with 14-foot head; 

 one, Middle Dam, at the foot of Richardson (Wellekennebacook), 16 feet high with 12-foot 



