BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
332 
the main building are small outhouses, sheds, etc., and close to the rear entrance is a 
small shed where the thermometers are kept. South of the hatching-house, at the 
head of a small ravine and on the edge of a narrow undulating terrace in the hills, 
the present sources of the water supply are brought together. 
Shasta Creek is a tiny rill draining the low hills to the southward and west- 
ward, and has an average volume of about 10 miner’s inches of clear water of 
excellent quality; it is about a mile in length from its source to the lagoon. “The 
Ditch” comes in from the eastward, and carries the waters of a small creek flowing 
down the side of a mountain, about a mile distant, which is locally known as Sugar- 
loaf Peak. The bed of the ditch is now well settled and ballasted, smooth, free from 
sudden drops, falls, or riffles, of a very gradual pitch, and carries an average of 
between 25 and 30 miner’s inches of clear, colorless water of excellent quality; it is 
about H miles long. At the end of the ditch its waters are received by a shed- 
covered tank (the “tank house”), in the bottom of which is the connection to a line of 
6-inch piping leading to the hatchery below; a branch of this system supplies the 
Pelton wheel. The escape or waste from the tank-house finds its way into Shasta 
Creek, close by. From this point to the lagoon beach is about 200 yards in a straight 
line. 
The waters of Shasta Creek are first tapped by a line of iron pipe a short distance 
above the tank-house; this pipe is used for filling a car at the upper end of the gravity 
tramway, which is close to the tank-house. The creek passes to northward and west- 
ward of the tank-house and plunges down the small ravine previously mentioned, 
and about one-fourth the distance to the beach ends in the highest pond. From this 
pond, called No. 10, or the “settling” pond, a wooden flume carries part of the water 
into the upper part of the hatching-house, while the overflow escapes via the old creek 
bed to the next pond below. The settling-pond also receives, in its northeastern 
corner, the waters of a small spring running the year round; this corner of the pond 
never freezes. The escape of pond No. 10 is tapped to supply another short line of 
piping which leads northward to the next pond, where it is used in connection with the 
tramway. This pond, No. 9, is the upper ripening pond and located about midway 
between the tank-house and the beach. In close order, terraced northward down the 
gentle slope, are ripening-ponds No. 8, No. 7, and No. 6, the latter housed in. From 
No. 6 the waste water escapes through open ponds No. 12 and No. 11 into No. 1, and, 
by another outlet, to pond No. 13 and thence to No. 1. From pond No. 1 the water 
passes in turn through No. 2, No. 3, and No. 1, and thence into the East Corral.- 
Pond No. 5 is out of the direct line of the system, and was not in use in 1900. No. 13 
was built this season, but had not been placed in use at the time of my visit. None 
of the water used in the ripening-ponds goes into the hatching-house. 
The supply for the hatching-house is first by the pipe-line which leads from the 
ditch (via the tank-house), and next by flume from the settling-pond. The settling- 
pond is quite deep, much more so than any other, and receives its feed so gently as 
not to stir the sediment from the bottom and roil the water. As its name implies, 
its function is to allow the small debris carried by the creek to settle before passing- 
on into the flume or to the lower ponds. The discharge, whether from the pipe line 
or the flume passes into a filter in the upper stoiy of the hatching-house, thence into 
a tank, from which it is piped to the troughs. The waste water discharges into the 
