June 27, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
808 
When we cross the river and climb Mount Tammany, 
on the Jersey side, the visitors are iewer yet. During a 
whole season scarcely a dozen people clamber over the 
rock-falls that lie below the face of its precipice; and 
not a hundred care to reach its crest. 
Only some of the attractive features of that hill which 
rnay interest casual readers will be mentioned here. 
Recreation, not study, is what they seek. One glance at 
such terms as "old red sandstone formation" or "rock- 
period," and the reader here would skip, or shut the book. 
A long, hard climb up to and over the rock-falls below 
the face of Mt. Tammany, with their purple and asliy 
gray, the edges of the dislodged, broken fragments choked 
in weeds or painted with countless lichens. Here the 
stones are newlj' fractured ; their hue is different from the 
pale broAvn and white of the boulders that fringe the 
shores of the fiver, and are full of water-made curves. 
These cliff stones are sections of parallel strata, split, 
then broken, and seem like thick blocks of irregularly 
sawed planks. These strata can be seen all over the face 
of the cliff, and running parallel to the slope of the hill's 
river side, every fissure steeply inclined; and over all this 
slow disintegration fall sharp-edged shadows from sec- 
tions not dislodged, but will be made more insecure by 
the wedge of frost and ice — solemn, impending, iron- 
spirited, distinct, yet with strange, untraceable harmonies 
of color, and all looking down on the thousands of tons of 
sister parts already lying prone, two hundred feet and 
more below. Not one horizontal line of rock or shadow 
01 color, but knife-like cleavage ! iVIy comrade calls it a 
"melancholy of ruin." 
When the night-cap mists are being shaken from its 
head, that peak is full of aerial perspective, and can seein 
more unsubstantial than the cloud-domes a mile above it. 
How many centuries ago did the river force its way 
through the now vanished wall that must have been a 
thousand feet high, and left these headlands, like crouch- 
ing lions, overlooking the valley below? How many sun- 
rises has this cliff witnessed; how long has its lengthened 
shadow been cast eastward at each clear sunset? 
If we so admire, write about and paint the unsubstantial 
mist, mocking clouds and odors, and gloom and moving 
foliage of a forest, why not pick up one of the stones 
and see whether the olcl bard was right in saying there 
Fire "sermons" in it? It is just a "darnick," a mere rock. 
We observe its curved, rounded outlines and surfaces, and 
realize that it is a tiny hill. The mosses that have 
gathered in a "patch" on its upper surface are really a 
tmy forest. The silvery excrescences are lichens. It has 
been rounded through centuries by the action of water- 
flow, or by ice under which it has been tortured, clasped 
and beaten. Think of the influences that have placed it 
here — what flowers must have blossomed beside it, and 
the ferns, noble trees, shadows, animal and bird life 
around it, all "in league with the stones of the field!" 
Steadfastness of strength, wild, rigid, silent, powerful I 
Now fracture it with the hammer. In its inmost being 
slept exquisite lities of curvature. Just an ad^mantisic. 
obscure pariah of the earth; yet see how, through all its 
stubbornness of strength, the colors and lines undul'':c 
in ripples and waves — not simply on its substance as in 
l".ke waves, but through its fibers! This is at once the 
taCt and the poetry of the rocks, and their pathos 1 " They 
which at first seemed strengthened beyond the dread of 
any violence or change, are yet also ordained to bear 
upon them the symbol of a perpetual fear: the tremor 
which fades from the soft lake and glistening river, is 
scaled to all eternity upon the rock; and while things that 
pass visibly from birth to death may sometimes forget 
their feebleness, the mountains are made to possess a 
perpetual memorial of their infancy." Storm-beaten, 
lichen-adorned, with creeping stains in exudations of 
mineral ingredients, it lies unnoticed, interesting, a moun- 
tain in miniature. 
Another laborious ascent of the hill to its crest at the 
precipice, where we eat our sandwich luncheon and "set- 
tle down" on convenient spots to smoke and watch the 
league on league of panorama to the east — ^fields and 
woods in patches, dots of white houses, dim mystery of 
distance, and the river lost far this side of the sky-line. 
Back of ua, the abruptly terminated ridge guides the river 
in an adamantine channel. No transient, downfalling 
wave as of water, but the fixed, upreared rock-wave and 
elevation of land ordained to give motion to water. For 
"the sweet winding valley with peeping cliffs on either 
side, the light, irregular wandering of broken streamlets, 
the knolls and slopes covered with rounded woods, and 
the narrow ravines, carpeted with green sward," all "owe 
whatever they have of simple beawty" to the sturdy, up- 
heaved rocks. 
Unique redundance of happy vegetable life over all 
the slopes whose trees and brush guard and retain the 
moisture which feeds their mosses. And such mosses ! 
Wildernesses of them on the rocks! They do not change 
the rock-form, but gather in little forests "like small 
cushions of velvet made of mixed threads of dark ruby 
silk and gold rounded over more subdued films of white 
and gray, with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar 
frost on fallen leaves ; and minute clusters of upright 
orange stalks with pointed caps, and fibers of dark green 
and gold; and faint purple passing into black, all woven 
together and following with unimagniable fineness of 
gentle growth, the undulation of the stone they cherish, 
imtil it is charged with color so that it can receive no 
more; and instead of looking rugged or cold or stern, or 
anything that a rock is held to be at heart, it seems to 
bo clothed with a soft, dark leopard .skin embroidered 
with arabesque of purple and silver." And there the 
chipmunk adds his own soft marldngs of yellow and 
brown and black as he fills the wild air with his scolding, 
jerky "chickareeece !" scoffing at you while his very body 
joins in lithe, quick protect at your presence in his do- 
main. And there the mountain lilies nod, and violets cling 
to fern-haunted banks below umbers in decajnng logs. 
Over all the repose and .?pell of .sweet daylight, and the 
security and seclusion of wild birds ^building in the 
boughs. All probabb' to pass unnoticed, yet certainly not 
"wasting its sweetne-^s." There is no little nook in all 
Europe whose glamour of wild beautj' can be a greater 
joy to the thousands who scamper through the lower 
Alps. Loveliest beneficences and refinements in tenderest 
colors," ordained decoiation, foreseen harmonies, mani- 
festly for p.tH" discovery and delight Jts unintruding 
guests! Seemingly all wild chance, full of such marvelous 
details as would torment and humiliate any painter — filled 
with creative thought, governed by tenderest yet most in- 
exorable law ! 
And as one gives it long, concentrated attention, there 
come crowding upon him strange recognitions of newly 
seen excellence — quickening pleasures of present-born in- 
sight. Its hypnotism makes my comrade throw away his 
cigar — the air is too pure to be polluted by tobacco 
smoke. He looks far down at the new aspects of the river 
from this vantage point, and growls: 
"There's where I lost my big fish. Wonder where he is 
now." 
Curious ! Hooking a big fish makes an angler feel a 
sense of ownership, even though the fish gets away. 
Then he looks up and down the valley and gives me a 
lecture on banks and mysteries of near and distant masses 
of thick foliage — on leaf monuments, leaves motionless, 
leaves a-flutter in gales. I grow tired of these terms of 
FINISH OF ROCKS BY NATURE. 
"grave tenderness" of color in distant blue and purple of 
fields and rock upheavals, the "peace" that broods over 
Focono Mountain, twenty miles distant, and the changing 
hues along its slopes and plateau. 
"How frosty it must be up here on a blue winter ni — " 
I stop him. "Enough, and more than enough." He per- 
sists : 
"And what a revelation when these hills flame in scar- 
let and gold of autumn colors, and shower down a yellow 
storm of scurrying leaves into the river !" 
I start down the steep path, surfeited. A man can only 
hold "so much." But I cannot too strongly recommend 
the reader to visit those hills — to climb and study them — 
their clothed heights, their falls of waste rock, their un- 
redeemed decay, the clear distances, the clouds that coil 
and die along them, and the low voice of the river below, 
over which come the faint, sleepy tinklings of the cow- 
bells, and the hoots of locomotives winding along cliffs 
and sending up their lazy columns of thin, blue smoke. 
L. F. Brown. 
Angling in Newfoundland. 
The regular angling season in St. John's opened on 
Empire Day, May 24. On that day hundreds of trouters 
availed themselves of the excursion rates offered by the 
railway company. Although the season was backward, 
and the day not best suited for fishing, yet various parties 
reported for ten dozen and upward as the result of their 
day's take. These trout of course are our native brown 
or mud trout, and are taken in the lakes and ponds near 
the railway line. The sea trout and salmon do not run 
till later. 
The number of American sportsmen who visit us has 
increased largely of late, and the outlook is that the num- 
bers this season will be greater than ever. This would be 
a drawback if the number of fish and salmon rivers were 
small, but from the peculiar formation of the island the 
lakes, ponds and rivers form a large part of its surface, 
and thousands upon thousands of anglers can get good 
fishing streams without interfering with each other. In 
fact, there are thousands of lakes and rivers in the island 
that have never yet wet a hook, and have yielded fish tO' 
no man since the last of >the Beothic aborigines camped 
beside them and levied their toll. With the increasing 
numbers of British and American sportsmen the traveling 
facilities are being brought up to date. Good guides, com- 
fortable boarding houses, and luxurious railway accom- 
modation are further inducements to, visitors. All these 
may now be had at very reasonable rates. The principal 
salmon and sea trout rivers are being looked after by 
wardens more carefully now than ever, as the Fisheries 
Department is beginning to realize that it is profitable to 
encourage the ever-increasing numbers of visitors. An- 
other great advantage offered to British and American 
sportsmen is that the salmon and sea trout fishing is abso- 
lutely free from all restrictions. There are no preserves 
and no fee or license is necessary for the visitor to fish 
in any lake or stream in the island. The climate in July, 
i^ugust and September is ideal — mild, bracing and health- 
giving. The Fisheries Department have reorganized the 
fishery wardens, and the rivers are now in better condi- 
tion than ever. In the official reports sent in to the de- 
partment by the wardens the number and weight of fish 
caught are recorded. The warden's report for last year 
for one stream, the Grand River, Codroy, contains, among 
thirty others, the following record of salmon caught: 
Number. Weight. Average. Total. 
Pounds. Pounds. Pounds. 
H. E. Sir Cavendish Boyle, 
Governor of Newfoundland 20 8 to 12 10 142 
Dr. Gage 16 7 to .30 12 192 
F. Donwav 17 8 to 14 11 187 
M Keattle' 14 7 to 18 11 154 
A. T. Winter 18 8 to 12 10 180 
M. Hay ward 25 8 to 12 10 250 
Total number of salmon taken, 420; weight, 2,889 
pounds; average weight, 7 pounds. About thirty salmon 
taken by others, names unknown, also a large number of 
grilse and sea trout, numbers and weight not recorded. 
Hon. Gathorne Hardy, from June 18 to July 7, xgoo, 
caught 58 salmon, including 34 grilse, ranging from 8 to 
22 pounds. These are only random cuUings from the 
official reports of_ Grand River; other rivers show like 
good fishing. There are larger Salmon caught than the 
average in the foregoing tables, Major Yardly, art officer 
in the British army, who spent some time here last year, 
writing in the London Field of April 4, tells in a graphic 
description of the fishing and shooting enjoyed by him 
during his sojourn in Newfoundland. As usual he lost 
"the big fellow," but nevertheless had royal sport. He 
says : 
"My record last summer on Harry's Brook, which I 
made my headquarters, was, from the end of June to 
second week in August, sixty salmon, total weight about 
.300 pounds; the majority of these were grilse, my largest 
fish being 14 pounds. Nearly all the fish that I caught 
over ten pounds were marked by the nets. Undoubtedly 
there are bigger fish, but they are the exception. One day 
I played a fish for forty minutes that I saw a good deal 
of and estimated at thirty pounds, but the hook giving I 
lost it. A neighboring rod landed a salmon that was three 
ounces only under thirtj' pounds; other rods also killed 
fish over twenty pounds. My friend fishing with me 
made a bag very similar to. my own. In addition we 
caught many white trout up to four pounds and brown 
trout up to three poimds, although Flarry's Brook is not a 
good trout river ; also we did not specially fish for trout, 
and these were by chance caught on our salmon flies. 
Some of my best days would consist of six salmon and 
many trout. This is a fair example of the sport that is to 
be had, and I was certainly unlucky not to, get bigger 
fish. Knowing this river I should be sure of a larger bag 
on it another year." 
The flies appear to have tormented the Major, as the 
remedies he brought were not of much avail. Local 
anglers use a simple mixture of oil tinctured with car- 
bolic acid; sixteen parts sweet or olive oil and one part 
carbolic acid. This makes a good remedy for flies. The 
acid is a little disagreeable in odor, but it consoles the 
victim to know that distasteful as it is to him, it is more 
.so to the flies. The oil soothes the skin and keeps it from 
burning and cracking in the sun. Enough mi.xture to last 
the trip may be procured from any druggist for a few 
cents. C. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST* 
Chicago fly-Casting Club. 
Chicago, June i6, 1903. — The following are records 
made at the last meet of the Chicago Fly-Casting Club : 
May 2.3. May 23. June 6. 
Acc'y Bait Delicacy, 
& Del'cy, Casting, Bait, 
Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. 
97 
97 
94 2-6 
94 4-10 
92 4-6 
H. G. Hascall 
95 2 .3 
98 1-10 
97 
92 2-3 
97 5-10 
92 
96 8-10 
96 2-6 
E. Hough 
96 8-10 
96 1-6 
97 2-10 
98 1-6 
E. L. Mason 
97 2-10 
97 3-10 
96 2-6 
94 8-10 
F. S. Smith 
96 3-10 
94 2-6 
97 2-10 
89 5-10 
93 6-10 
87 5-6 
92 5-6 
Bass, 
The bass fishers are still going out, patiently and faith- 
fully, but they are not doing very much business. The 
truth seems to be that this is a poor season for bass so 
far. The best reports have come in from Lauderdale 
Lake, Wis., where, I hear, that last week three anglers in 
parts of three days took 153 fish. This storj^, however, 
is so lacking in confirmation that I do not oft'er it as 
authentic. 
Mr. Byron E. Veatch, of Chicago, starts to-day for 
Prescott, Minnesota, from which point he has received 
advices that the small-mouths are running on the rip raps 
and that fair sport is likely to be had. I should think 
that the water was entirely too high for good fishing on 
the Mississippi River, but perhaps it may have fallen at 
this time at points so high up as Prescott, which is only 
about thirty miles below St. Paul. Mr. Veatch says he 
got his information from a former boatman who knows 
what he is talking about. He was outfitting for fly- 
fishing to-day. 
Reports from Fifield Chain, Wis., on the Wisconsin 
Central Railroad, run to the effect that very good bass 
fishing has been the, rule for the past ten days. 
Mascallunge. 
The biggest muscallunge of which I have heard in the 
month of June was taken on the Mason Chain, out of 
Fifield, and weighed 25 pounds. A number of smaller 
'lunge have been taken there. 
Tfotit. 
I heard to-day that they are having a big run of luck 
on the Prairie River again this week, some beautiful trout 
Ijeing taken by the parties at Dudley's, Miller's and 
Bates'. This stream seems to be unusually freakish this 
year and would seem to be losing its reputation as an 
early water. 
Pickerel. 
One gentleman who went bass fishing on the Kanka- 
kee River, out of Shelby, on the Monon, did not meet 
with very good success with the bass, but caught twenty- 
six pickerel, all of them small, most of. them about lYz 
pounds apiece. 
Cooking Pickerel. 
A friend writes me from Lake Minnetonka: 
"When I was in Chicago I forgot the object of my 
visit to you, and that was to thank you for putting the 
ignorant public on to the proper method of dressing a 
pickerel. I read your article a couple of years ago, and 
have profited by it greatly. We never knev/ that the 
despised pickerel was worth skinning before, but since 
I learned your methods we have never thrown one 
of them' avvay, and have had the best fish dinners and 
breakfasts we ever had at Minnetonka. _^ It is surely the 
only proper way to handle those fish." 
As this refers to matter printed some time ago, I 
might add that ottr correspondent probably has in mind 
