MUSSELS OF CUMBERLAND RIVER AND TRIBUTARIES. 31 



He was reported to have found three during the preceding week, one 

 of which sold for $100. 



At Beasleys Shoals there is a large and important shell bed with 

 several good-sized piles of shells along the banks. These piles aggre- 

 gated about 10 tons, and the Ohio River pigtoe furnished 80 per cent 

 of the merchantable shells in them. They represented chiefly the 

 residue of a great amount of clamming done here in the past. An 

 Ohio River clammer had taken out 200 tons of good shells and left 

 about 8 tons of culls, of which the elephant-ear formed 90 per cent. 

 The bottom was gravel mixed with yellow clay and covered with 

 12 to 16 feet of water. Of 5 pigtoes examined 4 were gravid, 2 had 

 young in the outer gills only, while the other 2 had a number of young 

 in the inner gills also. The Quadrula suhrotunda had orange flesh 

 while part of the gills contained carmine eggs, most of which had 

 been aborted. 



Below Cedar Bluffs we found a pile of 12 tons of shells which had 

 been collected a year or more before, and cribbed. The mussel bed 

 here was large with a very slow current over a bottom of gravel 

 covered in some places with clay. The bed has been extensively 

 fished for pearls; during the previous year (1910) 8 boats had been 

 employed and they collected over 100 tons of shells, more than half 

 of which were saved and sold. But there was fully a carload of good 

 button shells scattered along the banks. 



Goose Creek, a tributary of the Cumberland from the north, was 

 examined August 10, but although the conditions seemed in every 

 way favorable no mussels could be found. 



At Daniels Landing the mussel bed is half a mile long and 150 feet 

 wide in water 12 to 16 feet deep, with a bottom of yellow clay and 

 sand changing to rocks at the lower end. The fishing here has been 

 chiefly commercial since pearls are scarce. Eight men fished this 

 bed in the summer of 1910 and obtained 100 tons of shells, the prin- 

 cipal commercial mussel being the Ohio River pigtoe, which is of 

 extra-large size and of the best quality. A few very large nigger- 

 heads were also found. In spite of the large amount of shells taken 

 from this bed it still remains one of the richest in the river. 



At the mouth of Spring Creek, below Hunters Point, there is a 

 large mussel bed 1 mile long and 125 feet wide, in a very slow current 

 over a bottom of gravel and yellow clay covered in places with mud. 

 This was first fished in 1910, when 50 tons were taken; at the time 

 of our visit in 1911 the clammers had obtained about 14 tons, nearly 

 all of Ohio River pigtoe, with a few washboards and niggerheads. 

 Another large mussel bed was reported at the foot of Wings Eddy 

 Bar, and still another at Armstrongs Island. At Cairo we saw a pile 

 of 12 tons of shells, mostly Ohio River pigtoes. 



