52 



MARINE AND FISHERIES 



6-7 EDWARD VII., A. 1907 



ment would shake my knowledge of the fact that this is due entirely to the removal 

 of the sawdust from the river. There are now several fishing clubs in Peterborough. 

 The Peterborough Lock Company and the Canadian General Electric Company each 

 has a fishing club composed of workmen from the factories. This will satisfy you 

 that the fishing is now worth something.' 



The conditions which Mr. Dennistown describes are quite different from those 

 on the Bonnechere. On this river, below where I made my observations, there is a 

 fairly rapid current for 5 or 8 miles, and no slack water or pools excepting at the 

 Douglas dam. The rapid current aerates the water, promotes microbic action upon 

 the wood extracts, and tends to self-purification, whereas on the Otonabee river, the 

 conditions would approximate to those of decaying sawdust in a laboratory aquarium ; 

 fish not driven out of the ' slack ' water and sluggish lake would lie killed by the 

 poisonous extracts, or suffocated in the water which had lost its oxygen. 



ON THE OTTAWA RIVER. 



The question of whether the Ottawa river is so greatly polluted with sawdust as 

 to diminish its fish life, has been much debated. Assertions could be obtained in 

 abundance both pro and con^ but assertions prove nothing. The indications are all 

 against the popular idea that sawdust is destroying the fish of the Ottawa. 



In the first place, we have the testimony of the chemist. Mr. A. McGill, B.A., 

 assistant analyst in the Inland Revenue Department, in 1890, made an exhaustive 

 series of analyses of the Ottawa river water at two different seasons of the year, and 

 az a result of his investigations reported : ' As to the fitness of the Ottawa water for 

 domestic uses, I may say that it contains nothing that must necessarily render it 

 unwholesome.' If Mr. McGill could find nothing in the water that would be likely to 

 harm human life, it is quite unlikely that fish would be injured by it. At any rate, 

 no one has ever proved that Ottawa river water kills fish, and until this is proved, 

 ordinary mortals may well be excused from believing it. 



In the second place, many competent observers living along the banks of the 

 Ottawa claim that fish are not injured by the mill rubbish that has for years been 

 drifted into the river. Mr. W. C. Edwards, M.P., is one of these. Writing to me 

 under date of July 19, 1902, he said. ' I have lumbered on the Ottawa river for thirty 

 years, during which time I have never put sawdust or mill refuse into the stream. I 

 have, however, observed what has been going on, and it is not my observation that 

 sawdust has anything to do with deteriorating the number of fish in the river. We 

 have the same kinds and about the same quantity of fish in the Ottawa as we had 

 twenty-five years ago. We think a wonderful lot of nonsense has been preached with 

 regard to this matter. Conditions may possibly be different in very small streams, 

 but so far as the Ottawa is concerned, if we had double the saw-mills on it that it has, 

 and if all the sawdust went into the stream, neither the fishing interests nor navigation 

 to any appreciable extent would be injured.' 



Mr. Hiram Eobinson, president of the Hawkesbury Lumber Company, writes: 

 * While we were putting sawdust into the Ottawa at this place, I never knew fish to 

 be affected by it, having frequently seen good sturdy fish caught in our ponds just 

 below the mill.' Sawdust is not now drifted into the river by this company. 



Taken along with the opinions of Professor Prince and Mr. S. T. Bastedo, the 

 observations of Mr. Dennistoun upon the Otonabee river, and of Messrs.^ Edwards and 

 Robinson upon the Ottawa show how necessary it is that a thorough investigation should 

 be made into the whole subject. 



My own conclusions, based upon labi-ratory experiments, may be summarized as 

 follows : — 



