ers" of a trap, extending practically from shore to shore, with the immense "pot" in the foreground.

The next show the overlapping leaders of two traps, which, but for an oblique passageway between them (seemingly about 300 feet wide), would completely fence the stream.

There are more than twenty of these traps in the river, covering a distance of about 5 miles from the bar at the mouth to the narrows.

The following letter from Captain Kilgore, furnished in response to a request from me for his opinion, shows that he fully agrees with me as to the lawlessness of the existing situation:

U.S. S. PERRY,

Sand Point, Popoff Island, Alaska, July 26, 1899. DEAR SIR: I have your favor of recent date, requesting an expression of my views in the matter of placing pounds or traps in the waters designated as "Chignik Lagoon, Alaska," Hydrographic Notes Bulletin No. 38.

In reply I have to state that on Saturday, July 24, in company with yourself, I visited the cannery of the Alaska Packers' Association, at that place, and then proceeded up the lagoon to make an inspection of the mode of catching the fish. Proceeding from 5 to 6 miles up the river (or lagoon), I will state that when about half-way up the pounds and traps were encountered and for a distance of about 2 miles it was impossible to see any portion of the waters that were not obstructed by the traps or pounds crossing each other. On proceeding farther up the same condi tion of affairs existed, and at points where I judged the waters to be about threequarters of a mile in width, fences or "leaders" connected with the pounds or pots were run from either shore, and so closely connected that a passage of only about 300 feet was left for the passage of boats, and this was possible only by turning in nearly at right angles, inasmuch as the lines of obstruction interlaced each other obliquely.

The numerous standing obstructions of fences and pounds in the waters of the so-called Chignik Lagoon, erected and maintained by the three fishing companies, viz, the Alaska Packers' Association, the Pacific Whaling Company, and Hume Brothers & Hume, are in my opinion a flagrant violation of the act of Congress of January 9, 1896, for the protection of the salmon fisheries of Alaska.

Respectfully, yours,

H. M. KUTCHIN, Esq.,

Special Agent Treasury Department.

W. F. KILGORE, Captain, Revenue-Cutter Service.

In view of all that has been written on this topic in the past it is scarcely requisite that it should be further enlarged upon at this time. In my judgment only the most strained construction of law, such as the defense that these obstructions are not in a "river or stream," but in a "lagoon," can for an instant furnish even the flimsiest excuse for the existence of the Chignik situation. It really represents undisguised contempt for the attempt of the Government to protect the Alaska salmon fisheries, for the system has been persisted in in the face of the protest of every official who has ever visited Chignik Bay, and despite the fact that most of the fishermen privately acknowledge that their methods violate the spirit of the law. I most emphatically pronounce the use of these traps an odious exhibition of lawlessness, and do not hesitate to declare that if the Government is powerless to suppress the practice it is equally powerless to enforce any part of the salmon law, and would consult its own dignity by foregoing any further effort in that direction.

VIOLATIONS OF LAW.

It is my dispassionate conviction that, with a single exception, every one of the forbidden practices in fishing are more or less in vogue at one or the other of the Alaska salmon fisheries. The exception is the