128 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
Experiments of this nature by the Wisconsin State Board of Health in 1927 succeeded 
in markedly reducing the oxygen demand of the liquor. 
Experimental observations on the effect of sulphite liquor on aquatic organisms 
have been made in certain cases, but most of the reports on the subject consist of 
surveys made primarily from the standpoint of dissolved oxygen. Also these works 
have been concerned with fresh-water streams and lakes and not with salt-water 
bays and estuaries. It has been well established that fish avoid the waters which 
are polluted with sulphite wastes, but it appears that this is largely due to depletion 
of oxygen in the water rather than to any great toxic effect. 
That sulphite liquor exerts a germicidal action was shown by Levy (1905), 
according to Phelps (1909). He found that a 5 per cent solution of sulphite liquor 
in water highly polluted with sewage reduced the number of bacteria by 86 per cent 
in 6 hours, while a 10 per cent solution killed all bacteria within the same length of 
time. Presumably this effect is primarily directly toxic, for the highly polluted 
water was probably very deficient in oxygen even without the liquor. Levy sug- 
gested that the harmful effect of the liquor on fish might be due to removal of free 
oxygen from the water. 
In a series of experiments on the effect of waste liquor on perch, bass, and brook- 
trout fry, March (1907) found that in solutions up to 1: 200, without aeration, the 
specimens died, but that neither perch nor bass were killed after 27 days exposure 
to an aerated solution of 1:50 (specific gravity of stock liquor 1.028 at 11° C.). 
This would appear to indicate that death had been produced by insufficient dissolved 
oxygen. Later, however, March (1908, p. 896) stated, “A sample experimented 
with by the writer had little or no reducing action on the dissolved oxygen in the 
water, and it is likely that it kills by its direct action alone.” 
Whipple (1922) called attention to the filamentous fungi which thrive in sulphite 
polluted water which may in a secondary manner make the water unfit for fish life. 
The review of experimental data by Suter and Moore (1922) pointed out that 
the harmful effect of sulphite liquor on fishes is limited to fairly concentrated solu- 
tions, in general within 1:200. More recent work by Nightingale and Loosanoff 
(1928) on the effect of liquor on early stages of salmon indicated that although lower 
concentrations may be fatal, the effect primarily is due to low oxygen content. Low 
concentrations produced an apparently chemical effect on the scales of fry. 
Recent investigations of the fish life in the Ausable River by Carpenter (1930) 
showed that fish avoid sulphite polluted water even though the most contaminated 
water of the river was about 35 per cent saturated with oxygen (Faigenbaum, 1930). 
The results of Kn ight (1901) differ from those of other workers in concentrations 
required to kill fish. The sulphite “waste water” which he used was of specific 
gravity 1.00005, which presumably represents digester liquor diluted with 1,000 parts 
water. Yet a solution made up of 1 part of this to 9 parts water was fatal to trout, 
white perch, sunfish, and rock bass. The effect may have been due to the very 
high acidity of the waste water. It is also not impossible that the potency of the 
waste liquor depends upon the kind of wood employed in the mill. 
Because of the usual location of pulp mills on streams, there has been no pressing 
need of determining the effect of sulphite liquor on oysters. Most of the observa- 
tions indicated in the foregoing account are probably not applicable to marine 
organisms and to oysters in particular. In the first place oysters are immobile and 
can not avoid unfavorable water by changing their position, as can fish. Also, it 
