OF NORTH AMERICA. . 93 



abound in Lake Ontario, and run freely up the Credit, and other Canadian 

 streams on the north, as well as up the Salmon River on the south side of 

 the lake, none are ever known to enter the Niagara, doubtless in conse- 

 quence of the bar interposed to their progress by the Falls of Niagara, 

 which must be known to the successive shoals which arrive at its mouth. 

 Gradually, the salmon has receded eastward and eastward still, until it is 

 already becoming rare in the Kennebeek, decreasing in the Penobscot, and 

 in gradual but rapid progress of extinction in all the waters of the United 

 States. 



Even in the British provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 

 wherein the salmon fisheries are of vast importance — the exports alone, 

 apart from the home consumption, which is enormous, amounting to the 

 annual value of several hundred thousands of pounds sterling — such is the 

 reckless destruction of the fish on their spawning beds at seasons of the 

 year when the flesh is valueless as food, and such are the increasing obsta- 

 cles to their propagation and increase, that protective enactments are loudly 

 called for, in order to prevent the annihilation of the fish — especially by 

 Mr. Moses H. Perley, her Majesty's Emigration Officer, who has been 

 largely employed by the Provincial Government in the investigation of 

 this subject, and who has not only devoted much tune and attention to the 

 subject, but has thrown much light on it by his researches. 



"We understand that the Natural History Society of New Jersey are pre- 

 pared to make, to the three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pensyl- 

 vania, an offer to re-stock the Hudson, Passaic, Raritan, and Delaware 

 rivers, with salmon fry ; provided the legislatures will jointly or severally 

 pass such laws for the preservation of the fish, until they shall become fully 

 established in those waters, and for ever during spawning season, including 

 the removal of all obstacles to their free ingression and retrogression to and 

 from the salt water as shall be deemed sufficient, the society asking no pri- 

 vilege or remuneration beyond the actual expenses of providing and trans- 

 porting the fry. 



Mr. W. H. Herbert argues that, by the extension of similar provisions 

 to any waters wherein salmon have formerly existed, but are now extinct, 

 coupled with measures considerately undertaken for repeopling the breed- 

 ing streams, about their head waters, with young fry, all and every one of 

 the eastern Atlantic rivers might be rendered equally prolific with those 

 noble salmon rivers, the St. John, the Miramichi, the Restigouche, the 

 Nepisiquit, and others flowing into the bays of Chaleurs and Gaspe, and 

 more so than the Foyle, the Tay, the Clyde, the Forth, and other Scottish 

 and Irish rivers, even in their improved condition. 



Mr. Herbert's theory, as to the destruction of the salmon, in the first 

 instance, which he supposes, in some measure, to have preceded the exclu- 

 sion of the breeding fish from the proper waters, appears to point to the 

 poisonous matter infused into the rivers by the bark from the saw-mills, 

 which, in all the rivers of the cleared districts, has long passed away, and 

 ceased to have any influence ; and he assumes, as a certainty, that there 



