REGULATION OF THE SEA-FISHEEIES BY LAW, 97 



serve any iDJurious effects ui)on the fishes SNYimming in it. Allen says, 

 ^'Waters are not impure on fishing-grounds that I am used to; would 

 know it" it was." Bassett says, " Barriugton Kiver was always famous 

 scup-ground ; Kickamuit Kiver the same. I cannot find a person who 

 knows of any impurities in those waters that were not there fifty years 

 ago ;" and, ag-^din, " 1 think the water south of Stone bridge as pure as the 

 ocean.'' No witness, in all the thirty-nine, save Mr. Benjamin K. Tall- 

 num, the inventor of the traps, and Mr. Munro, of Portsmouth, also 

 a trapper, who, in July, 1S68, once in a while could see a fish (menhaden) 

 on Pawtucket Kiver come up on the top of the water, gape, and turn 

 on its side and die. He supposed the cause of this was impurity of the 

 water. Had been there for several years before 1868, and was there in 

 1869, but never saw any other instance of fish dying in this way on that 

 river. 



So the committee reported that, "in certain localities, doubtless the 

 waters are impure ; but the pollution does not extend so far by any 

 means as some persons in all honesty contend.^' 



One witness from East Greenwich, a fisherman, says, " The water is as 

 pure as ever. My fish will keep as long near where the print-works 

 water comes into the cove as anywhere, and clams, quahogs, &c,,are as 

 plenty as they have been for forty years." 



The known reputation ot Providence Kiver oysters in the market for 

 excellence of quality and flavor is another significant fact in the way of 

 those who would account for the scarcit}' of fish from the injurious effect 

 of poisonous substances thrown into the water from large cities. 



And in Massachusetts no imparities could get into Buzzard's Bay or 

 Vineyard Sound, except from New Bedford, ?nd nothing deleterious 

 goes into the Acushnet Kiver, except from one petroleum factory and a 

 copper-works, which did not thirty years ago. The Prussian-blue works 

 has sent its refuse into that river for more than thirty-five years, and 

 yet more was said about that than of any other of the causes. 



It is a little remarkable that we hear of no destructiou of the fishes 

 from impurities in the waters of the Hudson or East Kivers, nor in the 

 waters of Long Island, nor in the Schuylkill or Delaware. 



Only when traps are set in the bays and arms of the great sea are the 

 fishes diminished by the imi)urity of the waters. 



Even Mr. Atwood could not be made to consent to this, and closes all 

 the avenues to such an argument when he says, "But in the great sea 

 man cannot pollute its waters by anything he can do." 



Besides, if the pollution of the waters was, and is, a sufficient cause for 

 the scarcity of fish, we should naturally expect to find the fish to become 

 most scarce in the waters most affected, while the fact is that they have 

 diminished just as rapidly in localities where there are not known to be 

 any impurities which did not exist fifty years ago, and from that time 

 ever since. 



Lastly, the blue-fish as a cause of the scarcity. " But," says the Mas- 

 sachusetts committee, "the great cause that has driven many species of 

 fish from our waters is the blue-fish ;" and in support of this Mr. Atwood, 

 in his speech, says: "But the great change that has taken i^lace in our 

 fisheries has been caused by the return of the blue-fish." 



In his very interesting account of this fish, we are told that they fre- 

 quented our waters in 1763 and 1761, in which latter year, coincident with 

 a great pestilence which visited the island of Nantucket, the blue-fish 

 disappeared, and Mr. Atwood has no knowledge of a specimen having 

 been seen here for more than seventy years. "xVbout 1832 they reap- 

 peared along the south shores of Cape Cod, but did not appear on the 

 S. Mis. 61 7 



