152 
mon Station on the McCloud river. In 1883 the South- 
ern Pacific Railroad Co. (then the Central Pacific) ex- 
tended their line northward up the Little Sacramento, 
crossing the mouth of Pit river, into which the McCloud 
empties a mile or two above. 
So disastrous to the salmon was the effect of the road 
building along the Little Sacramento and the mouth of 
the Pit, that that year it was with great difficulty and 
only by very hard work that we succeeded in getting 
barely 1,000,000 salmon eggs, and the next year Prof. 
Baird, in disgust at what he considered the unpardonable 
indifference of the Californians, discontinued taking 
salmon eggs at this station. Since that time sawmills of 
immense capacity have been erected at the head of the 
Little Sacramento and the McCloud, and have done very. 
effective work in increasing the now alarming scarcity of 
the spawning salmon of the Sacramento. 
I think these instances are sufficient to show that what 
the friends of the salmon have to fear more than over- 
fishing, is the growth or development of the country 
always attendant upon an increasing population, but the 
fatal consequences of which to the salmon it is impossible 
toavoid. Nothing can stop the growth and development 
of the country, which are fatal to the salmon. For 
instance, there was no power in the world that could have 
prevented the mining on the Feather, the Yuba, the 
American Fork or the other spawning streams of the 
salmon; nothing could have stopped the building of the 
railroad up the Little Sacramento or the erection of the 
Sawmills on the upper McCloud. They came along 
naturally and inevitably in the march of events, and they 
could not be withstood; and nothing was left for the 
salmon but to suffer the consequence and disappear as by 
a decree of fate. 
Now actual fishing in the salmon streams can be regu- 
lated by law and rendered comparatively harmless, but the 
country will continue to grow more and more populous and 
