Stream Pollution* 63 



so that even here it would be necessary to pronounce the stream 

 ailing if not actually sick. As our survey proceeded up stream, 

 conditions grew slowly and very gradually worse until they 

 reached their maximum near the entrance of a new supply of 

 polluted materials, somewhere toward the foot of the dam next 

 above. Where dams were close together, conditions seemed to be 

 bad throughout the entire stretch, but where a long interval inter- 

 vened between two dams, the liver had evidently had time to 

 recover, or the period since the construction of this portion of the 

 canalized stream had not been long enough to allow the wastes to 

 spread far down stream, and a considerable area of reasonably 

 normal water was observed. 



Some of the side streams stood in interesting contrast with the 

 main river. Thus at Schuylerville there was observed a consider- 

 able portion of the stream where conditions looked very much 

 better than those in the region generally. This was just off the 

 mouth of the Batten Kill. On making a study of this stream as 

 far up as the first mill, it appeared that the stream flow was rela- 

 tively large, the pollution at this point not great, and the effects 

 on life in the water evidently slight. Conditions were said to be 

 different further up, but we did not have opportunity to investigate 

 this stream more particularly. 



At Fort Edward, Hudson Falls, and Glens Falls one finds a 

 considerable number of large mills within a relatively short distance. 

 The amount of wastes discharged into the stream was very large 

 and its character evidently exceedingly unfavorable to the exist- 

 ence and development of aquatic life. From the care with which 

 this waste product of one large establishment is conveyed in pipes 

 some distance down stream and turned out onto the rocks below 

 the wheel pits, one might infer that the material discharged was 

 strong enough to have an unfavorable effect even on the machinery. 

 Certainly no one could doubt for a moment that it had been in the 

 highest degree destructive to the organisms that naturally are 

 found in the river water. The wastes discharged into the stream 

 in this region are so extensive in amount and powerful in character 

 that one is not surprised to find the water through this stretch of 

 the river apparently devoid of any life whatever. Below Fort 

 Edward the stream is more highly polluted than at any other point 

 in the area studied, if one may judge from the biological condi- 

 tions. For some distance there is complete absence of normal 

 fresh water organisms and for a long stretch one finds only scanty 

 traces of the pure water fauna and flora. 



