THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
145 
no difficulty in getting to the sea, but I fear they will not 
succeed in returning. We reached the Aire at a point 
near to its junction with the sea. Here Messrs. Walls 
and Stevenson had a boat provided, in which we rowed up 
the river, with the fish-tins covered with wet rags, the day 
being very hot. Mr. Walls recommended that we should 
go up the Ford River, a tributary of the Aire, which we 
did, and liberated sixty of the young fry in it. We then 
rowed up the Aire for about four or five miles, and 
liberated the remainder of the fish, about 175, making in 
all 247 in the Aire, the Ford, and the Parker rivers, only 
losing four fish from the total number of 500 received at 
Ballarat. The Aire River is twenty to thirty yards wide, 
about a mile and a half from the sea, and continues a good 
width for about two or three miles inland. It is, however, 
liable to be barred in certain seasons, with the sand washing 
in from the ocean. Only recently Messrs. Stevenson and 
Walls scooped out a passage, for its accumulated waters to 
get to the sea, and thereby considerably reduced the depth 
of the river, and drained a large extent of swampy land 
adjoining it. The scenery along the banks of the stream is 
beautiful to look at, but the water in the river itself is 
much warmer than the waters of the Parker or the Burrum 
Burrum. . . . Altogether, I believe that the experi- 
ment to acclimatise the salmon in these rivers will prove 
to be a success.” 
The following appeared in the Argus of January 19th, 
1878, and is an account of my trip to Gippsland, with the 
salmon fry intended for distribution, in the rivers flowing 
from the Great Dividing Range known as the Australian 
Alps, some of which run direct to the sea, and others into 
the great lakes which receive many of the Gippsland 
streams, and have their embouchure by the Reeves River, 
through a shifting sand-bar, into the Pacific Ocean. 
K 
