THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 83 
ery commissioners, and gave them suitable power; gave to the 
riparian proprietor the control of ponds not exceeding twenty 
acres in extent, and regulated the times and methods of taking 
fish. 
In attempting to restock the Merrimac and Connecticut, the 
most difficult problem possible was the one first encountered, 
that of building a fishway which would carry salmon, shad and 
alewives over a vertical dam near thirty feet high. In this coun- 
try we had nothing to go by save the salmon passes of Great 
Britain, or the little water-steps over the low continental dams. 
Through successive improvements we have now attained a fish- 
way that will with certainty carry salmon, alewives and the com- 
mon river fishes over the most difficult dams. But the shad, with 
his love of the broad, gentle stream, and his suspicion of artificial 
contrivances, still remains rebellious. There is, however, a 
strong belief that the ingenious Colonel McDonald will irresis- 
tibly inveigle the shad into his mysterious pass. It is, indeed, a 
truly [rish pass, in which more water runs in than runs out; and 
the steeper is the incline, the more rapidly the water runs up 
hill; so that a shad would think that he was swimming toward 
Fortress Monroe when he was in reality going over the falls of 
the Potomac. From the outset, the Massachusetts Commission- 
ers had foreseen that the building of fishways on the Merrimac 
river was but a half remedy. It was further necessary to breed 
salmon and place them in the upper waters, that they might 
thence descend to the ocean, and return as marketable fish to 
their native river. To obtain impregnated eggs of salmon was 
at that time a work of great difficulty and expense. In the au- 
tumn of 1866, Dr. W. W. Fletcher, of New Hampshire, placed 
15,000 New Brunswick salmon eggs in the Pemigewasset; but it 
was not until 1872, that 16,000 young fry were let loose in its 
waters; and in 1873, 185,000. Occasional captures of salmon in 
nets at various points on Massachusetts bay were soon after re- 
ported; and on the 31st of May, 1877, two full-grown salmon 
were discovered mounting the Lawrence fishway. Since that 
year, salmon have been artificially bred at the headwaters of the 
Merrimac, and the full-grown fish have annually ascended a river 
in which for twenty-five years they have become extinct. 
