THE RIVER FISHERIES OF MAINE. 681 
Around the edge of the floor runs a single upright board, the “ribbon board,” to which is attached 
the lower edge of the “ marlin,” which is thus relieved from the force of the struggles of the fish 
when they find themselves about to be stranded on the floor. The floor is of rough boards, and 
the cracks between them are sufficient to allow the water to drain out freely. The entrances of 
the second and fish pounds are tunnel-form, the sides standing to each other at an angle of about 
80 or 90 degrees, and the outer entrance approaches the same form. The stakes employed in weir- 
building are commonly of black spruce, an abundant tree in the fishing districts, which grows 
straight, slender, and smooth, and affords strong and elastic wood. The brush is oftenest alder 
or white birch, but other kinds are also used. The netting is always of cotton, from the twine 
described as “18-thread, No. 20,” with meshes 1} inches square, or what is known as a two-inch- 
and-a-half mesh,” and tarred before being put to use. It is woven to accommodate the entire 
height from the floor to extreme high-water mark. When a new piece is bought it is placed upon 
the fish-pound, and the older pieces are used on the outer and second pounds, where they last 
several years. 
The ordinary sites selected for salmon weirs are on muddy bottoms, and the entire structure 
even to the floors, is supported by stakes or posts thrust or driven into the ground by workmen 
operating from a scow. The brush is woven in with the stakes above water and then pushed 
down, one piece at a time, by a crotched pole or an iron implement made for the purpose. The 
closeness of the work varies much, but it is not thought advisable to make a very close matting, 
as that would hinder too much the passage of the currents through it and would render some 
parts, especially of the outer pound, too dark. Where netting is applied, it is rarely put below 
“low-water mark, the lower parts being of brush. The substitution of net for brush appears to 
have operated favorably by facilitating the passage of currents. The old-fashioned fish-pound, 
woven of brush so close that fish could not escape, was a comparatively dark, stagnant inclosure, 
and a very inefficient arrangement compared with the modern netted pound: 
There are many variations from the typical weir above described, most of them of slight im- 
portance. In some cases there are but two pounds; in others there are four. In ordinary sites 
the pounds project, one beyond the other, into the river; but where the bottom slopes off too 
steeply for such an arrangement the series is produced parallel with the shore. In some districts 
the entire bottom is too hard for staking, and the weirs are built in sections with timbered bottoms 
in which the stakes are fixed, and which are towed to the proper place, sunk, and ballasted with 
stone. On exposed shores it is sometimes necessary to support the principal parts against the 
force of wind and waves by guy-ropes attached to heavy moorings. Instead of the shore the 
outer extremity of a weir is sometimes made the base from which to start the leader of another 
weir. On the Kennebec floored weirs are for the most part confined to shoal water, another form, 
to be described below, being employed in deep water, and a slightly different nomenclature 
prevails. 
The cost of building a salmon weir with a long leader, all new, may be put at from $80 to 
$100, including pay for the labor, which, however, is mostly performed by the proprietor. To keep 
up the same weir, including necessary repairs, would cost from $50 to $80 per year. 
The received theory of the operation of these weirs is that the migratory fishes, moving up or 
down the river along the shore, are intercepted by the leader, and, in striving to pass it, fall into 
the outer pound, which is of such form that, once within it, the fish rarely succeed in finding the 
path by which they came, the curved sides, which they follow, leading them constantly past the 
outer entrance and directly toward the second pound, which in turn conducts them to the fish 
pound, the whole arrangement being based upon the propensity of fishes to move in straight lines 
