THE SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 
41 
of the section could be cut out entirely. The words ‘‘rivers, streams, and channels” 
should be used with considerable caution as to the meaning. There should also be a 
proviso making it unlawful to pack fish taken illegally. 
The Treasury Department is empowered to establish regulations governing the 
salmon fisheries, and the first section gives ample power in the matter. There are 
several technical points which need explanation and should be embodied in the regu 
lations. The most important of these refers to section 2, and is as follows: Does the 
law, so far as it relates to rivers or streams that receive tidal waters, refer to the 
conditions at low water or at higb Avater? As a rule tliere are greaf fiats off the 
mouths of the Alaska rivers, and, as there is a rise and fall of tide of from 15 to 40 
feet, varying in the different sections, the topographical features appear very different 
at low water from what they do at high water. Low Avater is the proper base to Avhich 
the laws shoidd apply, and is the plane to which Government surveys are reduced 
on all charts. Everything pertaining to hydrography is reduced to low water, and 
on published surveys the dividing line betAceen land and water is the line cut by the 
low-water plane. This is a question of vital importance and a decision should be 
rendered. 
The same question involves the legality of traps in the Kussilof Diver and others 
to the westAvard. The point is whether or not they are in the river. The Kussilof 
Diver at high water has its mouth at the point where it debouches into Cook Iidet, 
where the banks are both defined within the meaning of shore people; while at low 
Avaterthe stream Hows between steep and well deflned banks that are covered at high 
water, yet they are banks, and the mouth is then a long distance from the high-water 
mouth. 
One of the traps at Kussilof is between what might be called the high-water mouth 
and the low-water mouth of the river. It is the one near the cannery on the southern 
bank. The leader commences at high-water mark and extends down the left bank 
with the heart in the low-water river, which is quite ]iarrow. At high water the trap 
is clearly outside of the river, at low Avater it is as clearly inside, but it is then mostly 
uncovered and on dryland, and serves no more purpose in catching fish than a line of 
telegraph poles. This loAv-water river is very shallow ; in fact, it has a bar at the mouth 
Avhich dries at the lowest tides, so that fish do not ascend at low Avater, but probably 
only at high water, when they trim closely around the shore and are detlected into the 
trap. It is said that the traps at Kenai are similarly located, and are in fact in the 
river. We did not Ausit Kenai, as no cannery has been in operation there for a number 
of years, and as the fishing season was all over and the traps pulled up at the time of 
our call. 
A decision on the following point is also very necessary : There are several bodies 
of Avater in Alaska which are joined to the sea by narroAv passages Avhich at low tide 
are rapids, thus making lakes or lagoons of these interior bodies, and during the last 
of the flood tide the water flows in, forming them into tidal basins. Kaha and Karluk 
are examples of this, but others may be found. If the plane of low Avater is decided 
upon as the meaning of the law, some of these bodies probably become lakes; but 
is it illegal to take a salmon in a lake? The law prohibits fishing by any means 
that prevents the parent salmon from reaching the .spawning-ground; but, so far as I 
can learn, nothing is said about fishing on the spawning-ground in the lakes, which is 
vastly more important than fishing in the streams. My opinion is that, in ascending 
a river from the sea, when that “river, stream, or estuary” once attains a width in 
