108 Part III. — Twenty-fourth Annual Report 



IV.— REPORT ON THE OPERATIONS AT THE MARINE FISH 

 HATCHERY, BAY OF NIGG, ABERDEEN, IN 1905. By 

 Dr. T. Wemyss Fulton, F.R.S.E., Scientific Superintendent. 



(Plates VI., VII.) 



Last year, owing to the making of a new road at the Bay of Nigg, it 

 was desired by the Town Council of Aberdeen, from whom the site of the 

 hatchery is leased, that the hatchery and some of the buildings in connec- 

 tion with it should be transferred to an adjaceut site and re-erected at their 

 expense. This was agreed to by the Board, and the hatchery, the boiler 

 and pump-house, and the store-house were accordingly taken down and 

 re-built on ground lying to the north of the old site, and contiguous to it. 

 This alteration involved a re-arrangement of the pipes to a considerable 

 extent, and the opportunity was taken to effect some improvements which 

 experience showed was desirable, both in connection with the pipes and 

 pumping plant, and in connection with the buildings. The Town Council 

 and the Burgh Surveyor, under whose charge the removal was made, gave 

 every reasonable facility for these alterations and improvements being 

 effected, and the hatchery is thus much better adapted for the work than 

 it was before. 



A strong wall of boulders, about two feet in thickness, has been built 

 with concrete on the seaward face of the new site, so as to protect it from 

 the action of the sea in storms; and this has been made continuous with 

 the bulwark of boulders built up after the great storm in February 1900, 

 which happened in conjunction with spring tides, when the site of the large 

 spawning pond, then in course of construction, was flooded. Owing to 

 the somewhat higher level of the ground at part of the new site, that next 

 the road, it was necessary to excavate it to a small extent in order to keep 

 the levels the same as formerly. This is required, as the water supplied 

 to the hatching apparatus comes by gravitation from the storage or 

 reservoir tank(«, fig. 1, plate VI.), to which it is pumped from the sea. 

 Strong granite retaining walls have been built around the reservoir, and 

 between it and the new site. 



The establishment consists, in addition to the laboratory (show?; at a 

 in fig. 2, pi. VI.), of (1) a spawning pond, (2) a reservoir or storage tank, 

 (3) the hatching-house, (4) boiler and pump-house, (5) a tank-house, 

 (6) storehouse, and it may be desirable to give a brief description of the 

 arrangements as they now exist. 



The spawning pond (fig. 2 f pi. VI.), which was the most costly part of 

 the establishment, consists of a large concrete tank or pond sunk in the 

 ground in order that it may be filled and emptied, according to the state 

 of the tide, without pumping being required. The levels were arranged 

 so that at high water of ordinary neap tides an average depth of four feet 

 might be obtained in the pond. The tank is 90 feet in length by 35 feet 

 in width, and has an average depth of 7| feet, the bottom sloping to one 

 end, where the depth is 10 feet; it is capable of holding about 160,000 

 gallons of sea water. The water is admitted from the beach by an inflow 

 pipe 12 inches in diameter ; the portion of this going through the 

 embankment separating the pond from the beach is of iron, the remainder, 



