of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
7 
to devise some means of overcoming these defects in his valuable fisliway, 
so that it shall be available even in the case of rapid rivers whose beds 
are to a large extent composed of gravel liable to be swept down in floods. 
After my inspection of the Macdonald Fishways on the Ericht, I wrote ^™? t ™ d " 
to Colonel Macdonald at the United States Commission of Fish and Colonel Mac- 
Fisheries, Washington; and on the 11th December, I had the pleasure donald, inven- 
of receiving the following answer : — ^of the Flsh " 
I am greatly obliged to you for your remarks upon the Macdonald Fishways 
on the Ericht. I have long realised that the liability of the tishway to become 
obstructed by sand, stone, and other debris, was a fatal objection to its use, and 
have been busily engaged in modifying designs to meet difficulties that experi- 
ence in using suggests. I have greatly simplified and cheapened the construc- 
tion ; the fish way, as now designed, will not become clogged up, nor will it be 
destroyed or damaged by freshets if properly constructed. 
I send you a design of fishway for a type of dam much in use on our 
western rivers, which I have designed for the Government Engineer in charge 
of the improvements of Green and Barren Rivers in Kentucky, and which will 
be built the ensuing summer on several of the dams in those rivers. The 
drawings are plain enough, I think, but I also send you copy of a letter mailed 
to Lieutenant Sibert at the same time. I also send you another design where 
the fishway is carried against and parallel to the face of a vertical dam. This 
was intended to meet the wants of our small interior streams. You will see in 
both of these that the fishway is simply an inclined flume or sluice built of 
timber on masonry or iron. In this are set up cast-iron deflecting plates, 
arranged in alternating sets, which arrest a portion of the descending water, 
and deliver it obliquely up stream, by which it is mingled obliquely with the 
descending current, the velocity of which is thus controlled. 
The arrangement of these is shown in Plan of Construction for a 24-inch way. 
The fishways already on the Ericht may be adapted to this plan at little cost, 
and, if securely covered, and the intake of water arranged as shown in plans for 
Green and Barren Rivers, you will not be troubled with the obstruction of the 
fishway by drift. I am, moreover, satisfied that covering the fishway, so as to 
exclude light, will, instead of interfering with the run of salmon, favour the same. 
A design of fishway for the Falls of Tummel could doubtless be made, 
that would not show at all when completed, and which would open up all the 
water above the Falls to the salmon spawning. Would it not be well to modify 
the fishways on the Ericht as indicated, and if they prove satisfactory, then 
move to get the salmon over the Falls of Tummel ? * 
With regard to the Falls of Tummel, mentioned in the concluding para- Opening up of 
graph of Colonel Macdonald's letter, I deeply regret to have to report that Falls ofTum- 
the prospect of having them opened up, and the vast area of lakes and 
spawning ground in rivers above made accessible to salmon, seems to be as 
remote as ever. So far back as 1884, I made a special Report to the 
Fishery Board describing the 50 miles of rivers, and the 20,000 acres of 
lochs that would be opened up by placing an efficient salmon-ladder on 
the Falls • and, in their second Report to Parliament (page 62), the Board 
record the following resolution on the subject : — 
The Board having considered the Report by Mr Young, on the opening of 
rivers and lochs, now closed against salmon, by the existence of such obstruc- 
tions as the Falls of Tummel, the Falls of Mounessie, and the Falls on the Conon, 
approve of said Report ; and having regard to the extensive area of spawning 
and angling water which would be opened in different districts in Scotland, 
by the removal of said obstructions, and the introduction of an efficient fishway, 
resolve to transmit a copy of said Report to the Secretary of State, with a 
request that a short Act should be brought in by the Government giving Dis- 
trict Boards the requisite compulsory powers, subject to such control on the 
part of the Board, or otherwise, as may be considered just. 
* For Report on the Macdonald Fishways on the Ericht, by Mr Lumsden, Super- 
intendent to the Tay District Board, see Note X. 
