Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 47 



gave promise of efficiency were of such a costly character as to preclude 

 any idea of their adoption. 



At lengfth their attention was drawn to the Rogers " ladder," a Nova 

 Scotia invention, which combined simplicity, durability and efficiency 

 with comparative inexpensiveness. A personal inspection of a number 

 of these "ladders" or "fish- ways" in Nova Scotia waters, where up to 

 that period forty-three of them had been in practical and successful use 

 for a number of years, demonstrated to the commission, without doubt, 

 that they possessed all the merit that was claimed for them. They had 

 been introduced there by and with the consent and approval of the 

 Dominion government and had been found effective. The gaspereaux 

 and salmon of the Nova Scotia rivers ascended the " ladders" freely, and 

 it was the decided opinion of the patentee that shad would ascend them 

 as readily as the salmon or gaspereaux. So strong was Mr. Rogers' 

 faith on that point that he agreed to erect one of his ladders in the dam 

 that spans the Susquehanna at Columbia at his own expense, and waive 

 all claims for pay until it was satisfactorily demonstrated that the 

 "ladder" would successfully resist the destructive action of the ice 

 freshets, and that shad in reasonable numbers would ascend it. 



As the engineer of the first fishway erected in the Columbia dam was 

 deeply impressed with the importance of having two ladders at that 

 point, and as the commissioners had every reason to believe it would 

 prove a success, a second one was ordered to be built at the state's ex- 

 pense without any guarantee from the patentee. 



The building required about four weeks, and while the work was 

 under way, and before it was completed, and during the period that the 

 men were at work, two black bass and a sun fish tried the experiment 

 of going up through, the first accomplishing two-thirds and the last one 

 half the distance, just from what water collected in the buckets after 

 they were put in from the leakage from the top end of the way. It was 

 presumed, and no doubt truly, that many went through the ladder while 

 the men were away from the work at night. 



The Rogers' fishway successfully withstood the great ice freshets, 

 and the shad every season passed through them with great freedom. 



While accomplishing this great work, the commission were not idle 

 in other directions ip their efforts to restore the shad fishing industries 

 to their prestine richness. Their fish wardens acting under orders waged 

 a vigorous warfare on the fishermen who used illegal devices. In Hun- 

 tingdon county the sheriff failed to give the warden support in his de- 

 sire to have the fish baskets removed, saying that he was averse to put- 

 ting the county to any expense on that score, whereupon the warden 

 acted on his own responsibility and demolished eighteen fish baskets 

 in the Juniata river. Besides these nearly two hundred of these illegal 

 fish traps were destroyed in the main waters of the Susquehanna. 



With the expiration of their term of office, the gentlemen who had 



