Excerpt from Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of the State of California: For the Years 1870 and 1871 California has a seacoast extending through ten degrees of latitude, and a shore line of nearly eight hundred miles. The Coast Range of mountains, which adjoins the coast line for the greater part of this dis tance, creates by its western watershed nearly one hundred streams and rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean. These streams and rivers vary from twenty to sixty miles in length. The drainage of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, through seven degrees of latitude, forms several hundred streams, whose united waters make the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers - the first navigable for a distance of one hundred and eighty miles, and the last navigable one hundred miles from the ocean. The waters from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada flow into brackish and salt lakes, in the State of Nevada, having no outlet into the ocean. Pyramid, the largest of these lakes, receiving the waters of the Truckee River, is forty miles long and twenty miles wide. The inland bays and fresh water lakes of California cover more than six hundred and fifty square miles - an area half as large as the State of Rhode Island. These few statistics are given that it may be clearly understood how extensive is the field over which, under the law, the Board is expected to prevent the wanton destruction of fish and required to compel the owners of dams to permit the free passage of fish to their native spawn ing beds. When it is further understood that the members of the Board neither receive nor expect compensation for their services other than the satisfaction of doing something towards the preservation of the fish now in our waters and adding to the food supply of the people by the introduction of new varieties, it will be acknowledged that if but a beginning has been made in this work, at least public attention has been called to the importance of the subject. If a few men of intelligence, living on the banks of each bay, river, and lake, will inform themselves of what has been done in other States and countries for the propagation and preservation of fish, they will create a public opinion that will cause the enactment of proper laws and compel their enforcement. The result will be that after a few years our river fisheries will be largely increased, giving employment to a large number of men, and furnishing a cheap supply of nutritious food to many more people. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.