Stream Pollution" 69 



had all been killed off by the polluted water, and that occasionally- 

 dead fish were washed ashore at various points, which might fairly 

 be taken to indicate the effect of the waters upon such fish as chanced 

 to migrate into them from purer waters above. 



At the time of our visit no water was going over the dam and 

 the stream below was made up exclusively of that which had gone 

 through the gates of the power plant. In making the passage of 

 the wheels the water was so thoroughly churned up that the floating 

 masses were not recognizable below, or at the most were demon- 

 strated only by the presence of fine flocculent matter which could be 

 distinguished in the pools formed after the water emerged from the 

 plant. The condition below the dam was not as bad as that above. 

 The reasons for this, however, were evident in the fact that the 

 stream was shallow, more exposed to air and sunlight, and was 

 flowing more rapidly, as well as being broken in flow by the char- 

 acter of the bottom over which it passed. All these things would 

 tend to restore the water to a natural condition and to favor the 

 introduction of pure water organisms as well as the destruction of 

 the organisms of pollution. 



It appears from reports of the engineers that a new dam is 

 projected which will be located just above the head of Big Bay. The 

 stakes indicating the preliminary survey for this plant were 

 found in our walks along shore and gave a reasonably accurate idea 

 of the location which this dam will have. I should be remiss if I 

 did not point out very distinctly here the probable results of install- 

 ing such a project. The dam as constructed will impound, water 

 that will assume a level near that of the base of the dam at Spier 

 Falls. The stretch of the river between the Spier Falls dam and 

 Big Bay, which is now a shallow region of fairly rapid flow and 

 broken surface, with successive stretches in which the water is 

 thoroughly stirred up and mixed with the air, will be transformed 

 by the building of the dam into a deep, quiet stretch that will 

 approximate very closely the conditions of a canal. This repeats 

 exactly the conditions that obtain above the Spier Falls dam, and 

 the result will be to replace the present stream conditions biologically 

 by those which are found above the dam at Spier Falls. The stream 

 will not pttrify itself to any extent and the polluted areas which 

 have established themselves at the base of the Spier Falls dam will 

 spread slowly down stream until they involve the entire basin. Even 

 before this has taken place, the water which discharges itself from 

 a new dam will be very much like that which is now discharged from 



