22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANAPOLIS MEETING. 



By reason of the low level of this region with respect to the Mississippi at the Nita 

 plantation, man}^ industries suffered. These industries were not only those of the plant- 

 ations on the river, but those of two railways, the Illinois Central and the Louisville, 

 New Orleans and Texas (known as the Mississippi Valley road), whose aggregate 

 losses must have been very large ; and not these alone, but many minor industries of 

 gardens and " truck farms," of lumber and shingle mills, and of other enterprises which 

 had grown up on the bayous in late years of apparent security, and which suflfered 

 in most cases total wreck. Still more important and more immediately to our pur- 

 pose was the industry which had developed rapidly on Mississippi sound, under the 

 liberal laws of the state of Mississippi, of canning and shipping fish and oysters. It 

 is only in the last six years, or since the final closing of the Bonnet Carre crevasse, 

 that oyster planting has assumed such large proportions in the sound ; yet large 

 plants have been established, and it is estimated that three to four thousand men, 

 women and children are employed in the canning factories, besides a thousand others, 

 with two hundred sailing vessels and small boats, engaged in fishing and in planting 

 or collecting oysters.* This industry has now suffered the penalty due to want of 

 foresight, or to parsimony and negligence. With this great industry, so easily pro- 

 tected yet so grossly neglected, it is not intended to deal specifically; yet to it is due 

 the credit of exciting close observation of the facts recited below. 



According to parties on the coast during May and June the color and taste of the 

 water was affected as far east as Pascagoula, some declaring the change perceptible 

 even as far as Grant's pass, the entrance to Mobile bay. Old fishermen announced 

 that they could perceive an eastward current on the surface beyond Ship island. 

 After southerly and southeasterly winds became prevalent the main current seems to 

 have been diverted into the channels immediately east and west of Cat island, and 

 this is the region in which most of the damage was done. On both sides of Cat island 

 and along the edges of the Chandeleur group lie the main oyster reefs, this being the 

 choicest ground for oyster planting, and there were other grounds near the mainland 

 and even in the tide-water inlets or bayous all along the sound as far east as Mobile 

 bay. With the influx of fresh and muddy water all the plantings were destroyed or 

 very greatly injured as far eastward as the end of Ship island. Farther east no actual 

 destruction of the oysters has been discovered up to this date, although the water was 

 freshened and the fish were driven out for a time. Towards the last of June, as the 

 fresh water diminished and the tides resumed their sway, the fish began to return. 



Why and how were these effects produced? 



It was not merely because of the freshness of the water that expelled the fish and 

 destroyed the oysters; it was the presence of the mud discoloring the water, which 

 clogged up the gills and other branchial appendages. Some fishes are able to indure 

 more of the floating foreign matter than others ; marine species, accustomed to a clear 

 medium, are actually destroyed by a very moderate quantity of silty material sus- 

 pended in the water passing through their branchiae ; and this is true also of other 

 marine creatures upon which they depend for food. 



Besides the injurious effects of the disseminated river mud which, according to all 

 the witnesses, was manifested in oysters collected in the latter part of April by a sickly 

 hue and unpleasant flavor and by small pellets of silty matter or discolored mucus 



* Mr. George H. Dunbar, of the firm of G. W. Dunbar's Sons, New Orleans, has furnished much 

 exact informal ion concerning this industry and the effects of the recent flood uoon it. Accurate 

 information was courteously given also by W. H. Hardy, president of the Gulf "and Ship Island 

 railway, and reliable testimony as to the structure of the coast islands and sea bottom was obtained 

 through the kindness of Major Whenery, lately chief engineer of the Northeastern railway. 



