WHEN THE FATHER OF WATERS GOES 

 ON A RAMPAGE 



An Account of the Salvaging of Food-fishes from the 

 Overflowed Lands of the Mississippi River 



By Hugh M. Smith 



United States Commissioner of Fisheries 



Photographs from the Bureau of Fisheries 



ONE of the most important of the 

 varied functions of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries is a 

 mighty effort to undo one of Nature's 

 apparent blunders and mitigate the dam- 

 age done annually to the prospective food 

 supply of the country by a cataclysm in- 

 volving untold millions of the best fishes 

 in the Mississippi River and its tribu- 

 taries. 



This effort, yielding large practical re- 

 sults and coming at a period when there 

 is most urgent demand for the preven- 

 tion of waste and the maintenance of re- 

 sources, must be rated as of great public 

 importance and as worthy of general 

 recognition and support. 



The Father of Waters is a serious 

 offender against the host of food and 

 game fishes which populate its turbulent 

 course, and exhibits marked disregard 

 for the welfare of the entire fish tribe. 

 Every year, and several times a year, it 

 overflows its banks, wanders far from its 

 proper haunts, and then subsides, leaving 

 behind temporary pools, ponds, and lakes 

 in which are myriads of young fishes 

 whose destruction is inevitable unless 

 human agency comes to their aid. Inas- 

 much as these fishes represent a large 

 part of the future adult supply of all the 

 leading species, their rescue and return 

 to the main stream is a matter of the 

 utmost importance. 



For many years there has been a reali- 

 zation of this stupendous annual waste 

 of food-fishes, and steps have been taken 

 to repair some of that waste. It was only 

 recently, however, that the efforts bore 

 an adequate ratio to the magnitude of 

 the task, and it was not until 1919 that 

 the operations assumed a scope and 



yielded results that could be regarded as 

 fairly commensurate with the need. 



The annual freshet in the Mississippi 

 River of greatest importance to the fish- 

 eries is the one known as the "June rise," 

 which usually occurs about the time when 

 most of the river fishes are ready to 

 spawn. It is somewhat later than the 

 freshet caused by the melting snows, but 

 is usually of equal volume and represents 

 surplus rainfall that is seeking a south- 

 ern outlet. 



PREHISTORIC GLACIERS CUT A WIDE 

 VALEEY 



In prehistoric times great glaciers, 

 moving down from the north, seem to 

 have cut a wide, deep valley through the 

 upper reaches of the river, and through 

 this passage frequent floods have for 

 ages brought down and deposited silt and 

 drift in such quantities that the main 

 channel has been crowded from the cen- 

 ter toward one of the precipitous banks 

 on either side, while the remainder of 

 what formerly constituted the river bed 

 is now a low table-land, with a gradual 

 ascent toward the hills. 



It would appear that at one time the 

 main river flowed unhindered through 

 what is now wooded, lake-covered terri- 

 tory, and that great drifts graduallv 

 formed and divided the old bed into land- 

 locked ponds, many parts of it with the 

 laose of time becoming so completely 

 filled in as to provide secure anchorage 

 for trees and other vegetation. 



As the river rises it first submerges the 

 adjacent lowlands, making ponds and 

 lakes on the nearest levels ; with its con- 

 tinued rise, lakes are formed at higher 

 levels, and so on until the flood stage has 



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