Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 39 



to keep an open fish-way in the Cohimbia dam, Mr. "Worrall notified that 

 corporation to fulfill its obligation and met with a prompt and affirma- 

 tive response, and an opening was immediately made in the dam by the 

 company, at an expense of some five thousand dollars. With the other 

 companies, however, Mr. Worrall met with opposition. These claimed 

 that they had purchased the dams above the Columbia from the state 

 free of incumbrance and that the act of the legislature was uncon- 

 stitutional, as it infringed on their vested rights. On these grounds 

 they either refused or neglected to comply with the demands made 

 upon them. Suit was thereupon begun against the companies by the 

 state and a long and bitter legal battle of nearly four years was waged. 

 The court of quarter sessions of Dauphin countj', where the cases were 

 first tried, decided against the state, sustaining the plea of the com- 

 panies that they were not compelled at their own expense to make these 

 openings. The fight was then transferred to the supreme court ; but 

 that tribunal affirmed the opinion of the lower court. 



According to Mr. Worrall, in his report for 1870, the result of the 

 opening at Columbia, for the first two years, appeared to be a complete 

 success. The year 1867 showed a catch reported from fifteen to twenty 

 thousand in number, above that dam. In 1868, however, the catch fell 

 off one-half and in 1869 and 1870 the catches did not exceed five thou- 

 sand in each year. This great fall off in the catches Mr. Worrall attri- 

 buted to various reasons: first, probably because even the highest num- 

 ber caught scattered over a distance of fifty miles was no temptation for 

 the number of hands required to manage large seines; second, because 

 it was too expensive to clean out the old fishing grounds for seining ; 

 third, because the kind of seines necessary for shad fishing on anything 

 like a profitable scale were too expensive, and finally because the induce- 

 ments were insufficient for fishing in the fifty mile reach above the Co- 

 lumbia dam. 



The one fishway constructed was from a plan chiefly devised by the 

 superintendent of the canal company with some modifications suggested 

 by Mr. Worrall, and was placed about one-fourth of a mile from the 

 York county shore. In its construction a section forty feet long was 

 taken from the dam, in which a new sub-dam was erected, so that its 

 highest elevation would about equal the level of the water below the 

 dam. The lower slope of the sub-dam was placed at au inclination of 

 one in fifteen, and the sides of the aperture in the main dam were 

 dentated or framed in a series of offsets so as to promote the formation 

 of eddies in the current passing over the sub-dam. Shad and other 

 fish, in their endeavors to pass up, were expected to be under the 

 influence of gravity in opposite directions, the lower water seeking to 

 obtain its level, the top of the sub-dam, the other water rushing through 

 the aperture would meet and drive it back with a force considerably 

 impeded by the cushion, so to speak, of lower water. The fish were 



