NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 151 



morning, they caught as many as a horse was able to carry home. But at present things 

 are greatly altered, and they often work in vain all the night long, with all their fishing 

 tackle. The causes of this decrease of fish, are partly the same with those of the dimi- 

 nution of birds, being of late caught by a greater variety of contrivances, and in different 

 manners than before. The numerous mills on the rivers and brooks, likewise contributed 

 to it in part, for it has been observed here, that the fish go up the river in order to spawn 

 in shallow water, but when they meet with works that prevent their proceeding, they 

 turn back, and never come again." Independently of these causes, we know that fishes 

 change their places of resort in the ocean, probably being frightened away by fishes of 

 prey. " It has never been formerly known," according to the same writer, " that cod-fish 

 were to be caught at Cape Henlopen ; they were always caught at the mouth of the 

 Delaware, but at present they are numerous in the former place." 



Dr. Belknap says, that the basse was formerly taken in great plenty in the river Pasca- 

 taqua, but that by the injudicious use of nets in the winter, this fishery was almost destroy- 

 ed ; that the salmon formerly frequented the same river, but that the numerous dams 

 built across its branches, have obstructed the course of this valuable fish, and that it has 

 for many years totally forsaken the river. 



At a place called Columbia, on the Seneca river, twelve miles from Three River Point, 

 a rolling dam was made over the river, and a canal of one hundred rods was cut, and two 

 locks made in order to facilitate the navigation, which was greatly impeded, and at some- 

 times rendered impracticable by two shallow rapids called M. Harry's and Jack's Rift, 

 the latter of which extends ten miles above Columbia, and is very shallow and bad, parti- 

 cularly at the upper end. Since these operations, the inhabitants above complain most 

 grievously about the diminution of salmon, which formerly abounded in the Cayuga and 

 Seneca Lakes, and their tributary streams, and they attribute it to the dam. Now it is 

 well known, that a rolling dam particularly, cannot oppose any serious impediment against 

 the ascent of this fish. When the waters are high, several vessels avoid the canal and 

 pass over the dam. It is indeed now understood, that the salient powers ascribed to the 

 salmon, have been greatly overrated ; and that it is a vulgar error to suppose, that the 

 salmon coils himself up in the form of a ring, and seizing his tail in his mouth, by the 

 strained violence of an elastic spring overleaps the highest ascents in an aerial somerset. 

 On the contrary, in every instance where he ascends those elevations called salmon leaps, 

 he does it by swimming up and over the face aud brow of the water-fall, penetrating 

 through the interior of the descending body of water, by means of his vast muscular 

 power operating on the action of his tail ; and he effects his passage when the stream is 

 very much flooded, and a large unbroken mass of water is descending. Without such a 



