66 New York State 



banks were studied from a rowboat and wherever it appeared that 

 conditions were modified by the addition of waters from tributaries 

 or of discharges from industrial plants a more special examination 

 was made of the particular region involved. The facts gathered 

 did not differ materially from those observed on the first trip 

 already described. They furnished more abundant evidence, how- 

 ever, of the conditions already noted and strengthened the argument 

 materially. It was possible in the various cases to follow more 

 exactly the transformation from highly polluted water, at the 

 points where the large discharges of industrial wastes into the 

 river made the stream largely if not entirely a polluted water course, 

 lacking the natural aquatic life, to the regions lower down, where 

 that natural life was more or less perfectly restored. Perhaps it 

 would be in more precise accord with the natural conditions to say 

 that at these points further removed from the sources of contamina- 

 tion the original life of the stream had been only slightly mp'iired 

 and that as one moved up stream towards the source of the pollu- 

 tion the life was more and more adversely affected by the condition 

 of the water until it finally disappeared entirely. 



At the points near the mills water conditions were the worst. 

 One found floating great pads of thick scum In which were 

 enclosed numerous gas bubbles, and it was easy to demonstrate 

 that such masses had been torn loose from the bottom by accumu- 

 lated gas and had floated up to the top. All stages were observed 

 in the formation of this thick bottom scum and in the accumulation 

 of the gas that was in it, but these phenomena are well known and 

 have been carefully described in the report on the pollution of 

 the upper Hudson to which reference has already been made. It 

 may not be out of place, however, to emphasize again the fact that 

 wherever this bottom material had accumulated the life character- 

 istic of pure waters was entirely absent, save that once or twice we 

 did observe a solitary fish moving into or across some of these 

 regions. In these places the amount of such material accumulated 

 was moderate and no life whatever was observed In those places 

 where we observed the most extensive accumulations of this 

 deposit. 



Leaving the boat at Fort Edward the party proceeded by trolley 

 and conveyance to Big Bay, which is a familiar fishing ground in 

 a large bend of the river several miles above Glens Falls* From 

 this point up stream to the Spier Falls dam I made a most careful 

 study of the water in a rowboat and on foot along the shore in 



