The morning times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1897, 1895-09-13
Fishing at Great Falls Is of No
Earthly Use.
MUCH MONEY SPENT THERE
Seventy-four Thousand Dollars Al
ready Squandered, and 1t Is Doubt
full Whether Moree win Ever BE
Used-Intention Was TO Revive a
Business Killed by the Dams.

The largest failure probably of the United
States Fish Commission is tn be found In
the fisbway at the grandly picturesque
Great Falls of the Potomac, fourteen miles
above Washington. The government, upon
the recommendation of the Fish Commission
officials, has spent $4,000 there and the
people have never profited one cent as a
result of the work.
Whether the fishway will ever be COM
pleted is very problematic- The reason
given is that there has been lack of money,
but the gentlemen in charge of the Commits
sion have found money for various other
projects begun long after the fishway.
In the last edition of the British Encyclo-
pedia, published over ten years ago, DR..
Brown Goode says of improving rivers as
habitations for fish: Constructions, such
as dams, may in most Instances be overcome
by the use of fish ladders. The salmon has
profited much by those devices in Europe,
and the immense dams in American rivers
will doubtless be passabl e even for shad and
alewives il the new system OF fishway con-
struction now being beapplied on the savan-
rivers fulfills its present promise OF success"
That upon the otomac does not appearto
have been fulfilled.
In the report from the commission In II $50,
the description of this new system is entered
upon quite fully and Illustrations are fur
nished TO show how the work is to be
accomplished. The plan is, in its general
outline, very simple. A runway inclined
from the top OF the dam like huge cellar
door lies in the middle of the stream. Its
surface is divided into six channels by five
beams about foot square. The length
OF the beams is the same as that of the
fishwoy or section, about forty feet.
Down the channels flow. the water at an
angle of about fifteen degrees with the
horizon. In each channel is series OF
distractions turning the current back
upon itself and by friction SO retarding
the swiftness of the flow as to make IT
possible for the fish to dart up the way and
gain the comparatively quiet pool above
OLD PLANS.
The old method of construction had been.
to build a winding way 500 feet long for
a dam ten feet high. The objection was
that the fish would lose their way in the
windings and the work involved was too
great. II was hoped that the new system
would permit the construction of light ways
of boards which might be removed whca
the fish were not running and put under
shelter to preserve them.
1t was believed that by the use of these
ways the extensive fisheries for white shad
might be re-cstablished, which had in
early days employed large numbers OF
.ft-trnr init 40
Chesapeake. The building OF dams had
destroyed the business. On July 10, 1882,
Congress made an appropriation of $780,
900 for the construction Of six fishways,
or six sections of a fishway, at Great
Falls. A contract was let and several parts
of the work was completed, only 10 be
carried away later by an overflow.
Later the work was renewed under the
direction of the War Department, and
a gain it was swept away. Another APP
proprlat .on. $4,000 this time, was Sc
cured, and in 1891 plans were drawn at
the war Department and a contract was
let to Isaac II Hathaway, of Philadelphia,
to build the way In the report of the
for 1892 he says that work
was begun in July, 1891, and sections 4,
. and were completed within that year.
Subsequently two more sections were
built The sections are numbered from the
aqueduct dam down, and ali were finished
except the upper or first which should
carry the fish over the main dam. Ahuge
wall of masonry runs out below the dam
showing where work was begun. Then
operations were abandoned. Was it simply
for lack of money or had confidence in the
new system run short?
SOLIDLY BUILT.
The five sections of the way or the five
fishways, are very solidly built and stood
there in the middle of the Potomac bed
when visited yesterday by a Times reporter,
a huge monumental somebody's mistake or
somebody's incompetency. The bushes are
beginning TO reach out TO them from both
sides and the drift has collected on the
little dams that flank the largest and MOI
obvious. wE- her any fish have ever come
up the ways already built could not be
learned. 1t is certain none have ever gone
over the big dam in section l of the way
which is as yet on paper in the chief
engineers office in the War Department.
In answer to Times reporters ques-
lions yesterday Acting Commissioner Gill
said that lie did not know whether the
built according to the new system
on the James and on the Delaware had been
successful or not. No effort had been
made to complete way at Great Falls for
several years because the appropriation had
not been sufficient. Very little attention
had been given to it because it was not
thought TO be possible to secure the money
needed.
AS TO recent statements that the Commits
sion is little more than feeder to the Ma
tional Museum, he said no specimens Were
ever sent to the Museum till after they had
been used by the Commission for the pur-
pose for which selected. Some assistants
of the Commission were employed in the
No specimens We're sent to col
leges. That was wholly the work of the
Museum though, of course, material gath
cred by the Commission agents still retained
the COMMISSIONS label when forwarded.
The collections of the Commission when