[3] OPERATIONS AT THE M''CL0UD ElVER SALMON STATION. 991 



meutiou this in order to have the case fairly stated, though I am quite 

 confident myself that it was the blasting on the railroad that is mainly 

 responsible for the disturbance of the salmon in the river and their 

 tributaries below the mouth of Pitt Eiver, and I may add that before 

 the season was over this was, I believe, the universal opinion. 



While we were waiting for the salmon to come up, and were inves- 

 tigating the reasons for their not coming, I employed the time and the 

 spare means at my disposal in putting up an addition to the hatching 

 house for the purpose of obtaining greater facilities for hatching the 

 young salmon for the river. 



The hatching house was barely large enough to hatch 4,000,000 

 salmon in and keep them till the proper age for turning loose, and as 

 the State fish commission proposed to have 6,000,000 hatched this 

 season, and as many, very likely, in future seasons, it was necessary to 

 provide additional room for the additional 2,000,000 salmon, and for 

 this reason an enlargement of the hatching househad become a neces- 

 sity. The annex to the hatching house was put up on the south side 

 of the building and was 80 feet long by 8 feet wide, and when finished 

 answered its i^urpose admirably. 



I also attached a small current- wheel to the lower end of the flat-boats, 

 which furnished power for working a Chinese pump in each one of the 

 flat-boats, by which arrangement the boats were kept automatically 

 bailed out. Thus the labor of bailing by hand was saved, to say noth- 

 ing of the care and risk which were avoided. 



The salmon continued as scarce as ever, and there was no improve- 

 ment seen in their number, during the rest of the season. The result 

 was that we caught fewer salmon and took less eggs this year than ever 

 before since the station was established on the bank of the river in 1873, 

 the total outcome of the season's operation being only 1,000,000 eggs. 

 On the 19th of September an accident happened to the wheel which 

 made it necessary to take the eggs from the hatching house and place 

 them in floating boxes in the river, this operation causing a loss of per- 

 haps 25 per cent of the eggs. A short time after, when there was water 

 enough running in the reserve flume which comes from a spring near 

 the house, the eggs were returned to the hatching house, where they re- 

 mained till they were turned over to the California fish commission on 

 the 16th of October. 



They were afterwards hatched by the State commission and the 

 young fish deposited in the McCloud River. 



Following this report will be found — 



(1) A record of the hauls made with the seiue. 



(2) A daily record of the salmon eggs taken. 



(3) A record of the temperatures of air and water at the station. 

 Charlestown, ;bT. H., December 3], 1883. 



