152 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



solid column of water, his ascent would be physicially impossible ; at these times the 

 water, as in all cases of flood, is highly discoloured, and so darlingly quick is the ascent 

 of the fish, as rather to resemble the transient gleam of a passiug shadow over the water, 

 than a real substance penetrating through it. (Philosophical Magazine, vol. 34.) It is 

 nevertheless obvious, that this dam could not prevent the ascent of salmon : some other 

 cause must be found out. The salmon is a very timid fish. In April, May, and June, 1810, 

 the year after the canal was used, near two hundred boats had passed through it. The im- 

 proved navigation had greatly increased the number of vessels which used it. The width of 

 the river at the dam is about twenty-three rods. In salt water creeks, where no obstacles 

 exist, tbe same complaint is made of the scarcity of fish. Newtown creek, which heada 

 about four miles from the east river, by an uninterrupted navigation, is, when compared, 

 with its former abundance, now almost destitute of fish. The principal cause of the di- 

 minution is, in the augmentation of the number of boats, and the increase of the navigation, 

 which have frightened the fish away. 



Other reasons may be assigned of great weight. The cultivation of the country has 

 had a prodigious effect in producing this diminution. Some species of fish subsist on the 

 larva of insects and worms. The cutting down of trees, the drying up of swamps, marshes, 

 the ploughing of land, and the exposure of the soil to the influence of the sun, have 

 lessened these sources of subsistence. The streams and rivers have also been diminished 

 in size, some of them have been entirely dried up. The fountains and springs which 

 furnished cool retreats for the deposite of their spawn, are destroyed. The alluvial 

 deposites have also choked up their ancient places of resort, have discoloured the waters, 

 and rendered them disagreeable and unhealthy; and they have thus been expelled from 



their former domains, and have been obliged to look out for other haunts, in wild and 



uncultivated countries. 



Having so often referred to Hudson's celebrated voyage up the North, or Hudson, 



river, it may not be uninteresting to mention the several animal, vegetable, and mineral 



productions which, he says, that he saw on this voyage. 



Salmon; mulletts ; rays; breams; basses; barbels; Indian corn; dried currants; 



venison ; pompions ; beans ; hemp ; chesnuts ; grapes ; tobacco ; yellow copper ; beavers' 



skins ; otters' skins ; oak-trees ; walnut-trees ; ewe-trees ; trees of sweet wood ; slate for 



building ; a stone like emery that would cut iron or steel. 

 And of Indian manufactures, he saw, 

 Deer skins well dressed ; red copper tobacco pipes ; pots of earth to dress meats ; 



beads ; bows and arrows ; dresses composed of mantles of feathers ; dresses of skins of 



divers sorts of good furs ; ornaments of copper about the neck. 



