290 SALilOX FISHIXG IX CANADA. 



sible to almost every femily in Canada, Ijut also an article of no 

 small commercial importance as an export to the United States, 

 in Avliich country, liy pursuing tlie course which Canada has 

 hitherto imitated, this noble fish lias been almost exterminated. 

 T"\venty-five or thirty years ago every stream tributary to the St. 

 Lawrence, fi-om Niagara to Labrador on the north side, and to 

 Gaspe Basin on the south, abounded Avith salmon. At the pre- 

 sent moment, with the exception of a few in the Jacques Cartier, 

 there is not one to lie found in any river between tlie Falls of 

 Niagara and the citj^ of (Quebec. This deplorable decrease in a 

 natural production of great value has arisen from two causes: 

 1st. — the natural disposition of uncivilised man to destroy at all 

 times and at all seasons whatever has life and is fit f )r foiod ; and 

 2nd. — the neglect of those persons who ha"\'e constructed mill 

 dams, to attach to them slides, or chutes, hy ascending which the 

 fish coidd pass on^wards to their spawning beds in the interior. 

 It is sTipiposed Ijv manj' tliat the dust from the s;r\vmills getting 

 into the gills of the salmon prevents them from respirating fi-eely, 

 and so Ijanislies them from the streams on which such mills are 

 situated; but I am pierp^iuaded that this is a mistake, for salmon 

 are found in consideralile numbers at the mouths of many such 

 streams, lielow the dams. Li the Marguerite, in the Saguenay, 

 at the Pi'tit Sa(pienay, the Es-qucmain, Port Neuf, Eimouski, 

 IMetis, and others that might be named, the real cause of the 

 decrease is the insuperable olistacles presented by mill-dams, 

 which prevent them fi-om ascending to the aerated waters, high 

 up the streams, which are essential for the fecundation of their 

 ova, and so for the propagation of the species. Would you then 

 — it may be asked — pull down our mills in order that we might 

 have salmon in our rivers ? most certainly not, I reply, for it is 

 cjuite possible to maintain all our mills, with all their mill-dams, 

 and yet afford to the fish an easy and inexpensive mode of passing 

 upwards to their breeding places. 



