USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Centennial history of the city of Washington, D. C. With full outline of the natural advantages, accounts of the Indian tribes, selection of the site, founding of the city to the present time > Part 4
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Sturgeon, 40 to 120 pounds; rockfish, 1 to 75 pounds; shad-Clupea alosa, 6 pounds; white, -; tailor, 3 pounds; gar, 6 pounds; eel- fresh water, 3 pounds; common, 1} pounds; carp, 3 pounds; herring, 2 pounds; pike, 2 pounds; perch-white, 1 pound; yellow, 1 pound; mullet-fine scaled, 1 pound; coarse scaled, } pound; smelt,
About thirty miles below Washington was located the noted fishery of General Mason, called Sycamore Landing. At this fishery, in perhaps the year 1825, at one draught of the seine, four hundred and fifty rockfish were taken, the average weight of cach fish being sixty pounds,. It was then, and is now, of course, a habit of many species
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
of fish to annually ascend the Potomac and other Atlantic rivers to fresh water, to deposit their eggs, thus providing at the same time for the continuation of their species and an abundant supply of nutritious food for man. The principal kinds of these migratory fish thus ascending the Potomac and other rivers were, and are, the shad, her- ring, and sturgeon, the first two kinds ascending the rivers to fresh water annually, and the latter kind making two visits, one in May and the other in August. The sturgeon, in early days, was taken in great quantities between Georgetown and the Little Falls. He is sometimes of very large size, weighing from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty pounds. One remarkable fact about this fish, according to the early writers, was that while it was considered a great delicacy in the James, the Potomac, and the Hudson, yet in the Delaware it was considered of but little value, and was scarcely eaten. The sturgeon was caught with floating nets with large meshes, or with an ingeniously contrived hook, not provided with bait for the fish to swallow, but by a curious device prepared in such a way as to pierce him in the body so deeply as to surely hold him and bring him in. This method of fishing for sturgeon was at one time peculiar to the Potomac fisheries.
The great fisheries for herring, in earlier times, were situated between the city of Washington and the mouth of Acquia Creek, fifty miles below the city. The principal fisheries for shad were confined to yet stricter limits - between the mouth of the Occoquan River on the right bank of the Potomac and the shores just above Fort Wash- ington on the left bank of the river; that is, say, from fifteen to thirty-five miles below Washington. Many herring, it is true, are caught both above and below these limits, but not nearly so many as within them. Some of the finest shad are caught in drop nets,-two or three at a time,-at the foot of Little Falls, which, on account of its remarkable agility, this fish sometimes contrives to ascend, the fall of the water here being only about thirty feet in three miles, and the fish, having surmounted the falls, are then found up to the Great Falls.
Herring, however, do not get above the Little Falls. Of this kind of fish from one hundred to three hundred thousand were often taken at a single haul of the seine, and of shad, according to later writers, from ten thousand to fifteen thousand were occasionally drawn at a time. The seines, however, were very large, being from six hundred to twelve hundred yards long, and were hauled in by means of long, stout ropes and capstans fixed on shore. The seines used at the best shad land- ings were constructed of such large meshes that the herring escaped, thus saving time and expense by separating the two kinds of fish.
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NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
Herring are not generally eaten when fresh, but when cured they keep remarkably well, and are most highly flavored when two years in salt. While the Potomac River can boast of the largest and best shad fisheries in the country, the herring fishing is participated in by other Southern rivers, and there is an equal amount of herring taken in the Susquehanna River.
Referring to statements found in older writers about the shad and herring fisheries of the Potomac, the publications of the Fish Com- mission of the Government, which are prepared by experts, say that this river has always been celebrated for the excellency and value of its shad and herring fisheries. Reports of their magnitude have come down to us from early days, and from them, we must gather that the productions then, as compared with our own day, have been simply fabulous. The fisheries of this river annually decreased in value and production up to the time of the War. The intermission which then ensued in fishing operations, on account of those of a martial character, allowed the fisheries to recuperate, so that, in the years immediately subsequent to the War, it was found that they had, in a measure, recovered from their former depletion. In 1878, the minimum of production was attained, during which season less than two hundred thousand shad were taken in the entire river. In 1879, the result of artificial propagation first manifested itself, and there was a considerable increase in the run of shad, from which time up to 1880 there were taken nearly six hundred thousand shad.
The early fisheries on the Potomac were prosecuted almost entirely by means of haul nets, but in 1835 gill nets were introduced from the North, which steadily grew in favor, and up to about 1875 were almost exclusively employed. In this latter year, pound nets were introduced, and these rapidly superseded the gill nets, as the gill nets had previously superseded the haul nets or seines.
According to the Government report above referred to, the Potomac fisheries, in 1880, employed 1,208 men; 230 boats, valued at $30,750, and having an aggregate of apparatus and fishing houses worth $209,550. The products of these fisheries that year were as follows: Shad, 2,040,052 pounds, worth $60,201; herring, 6,291,252 pounds, worth $62,912; sturgeon, 288,000 pounds, worth $2,880; miscellaneous, 1,317,- 030 pounds, worth $39,510.
In 1886, Gwynn Harris made a report of the shad and herring fisheries of the Potomac as follows: Number of shad landed at Wash- ington from March 19, 1886, to June 10, 1886, 180,175; number at Alexandria, Virginia, 34,847; number shipped by steamer Sue to Bal-
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
timore, 48,000; number shipped by steamer W. W. Corcoran, 5,600; sold on the different shores, 6,800; total [number of shad taken, 275,422. The number of herring landed at Washington was 7,315,473; the number landed at Alexandria was 3,979,324; the number shipped by steamer Sue to Baltimore was 850,000; the number sold on the differ- ent shores and at the trap nets was 1,400,000; total number of herring taken, 13,544,797.
About June 10, 1885, an Atlantic salmon was caught in the Poto- mac River, which was probably the first that was ever seen in the river.
According to the report of Colonel Marshal McDonald, Commis- sioner of Fish and Fisheries, there were planted in the Potomac River from November 4, 1885, to January 5, 1886, 5,500 German carp. The number of shad planted in the same river for 1886 was 1,282,000. The number of vessels employed in the Potomac fisheries from March 31, to May 31, 1886, was 31, with 78 men, and an aggre- gate tonnage of 457.7. The number of shad sold at Alexandria during the season of 1886 was 34,847, and the number of herring, 3,979,324.
The crawfish of the Potomac are in great abundance, in front of and below the city of Washington, but they are not taken to supply the markets of the city, as they find no ready sale. The business, in 1880, was entirely in the hands of a few parties who fished during a short period in the spring, and sent nearly all their catch to New York, where they brought about $2 per hundred, whereas in previous years they had sold as high as from $4 to $6 per hundred.
Oysters from the Potomac are troublesome, because they are mixed with numerous obnoxious mussels, and in addition to this they do not grow well in this river. During the spring of 1879, Captain Samuel M. Travers, of the oyster police force, directed his deputy commanders to board all vessels loading plants for Northern markets, and obtain the number of bushels takeu. Through them he found that the total number of bushels was 2,178,750, of which 625,000 bushels were from the Potomac River and its tributaries.
The Potomac fisheries are prosecuted by citizens of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The average number of men employed in recent years has been about 3,700; the capital invested, about $270,000, while the product reaches an average yield of more than half a million dollars. The fish trade of the District of Colum- bia during the four years ending in 1890, averaged nearly 6,000,000 pounds of fish, received from the river and bay, besides oysters, crabs, clams, and turtles. In 1890, it amounted to 6,393,974 pounds of fish, 6,182,700 clams in number, 779,300 crabs, 376,875 bushels of
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NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
oysters, and 107 turtles. The shad and herring are the most impor- tant of the fish brought to this market.
The nature of the Potomac fisheries has greatly changed within the past twenty years. So long ago as the beginning of this period, the catch of shad and herring by haul seines was not made at the spawning grounds of the fish, the entire run of both kinds reaching their spawning grounds in the river. Under these conditions, fishing in the river was prosperous. With the introduction of the pound net, the site of the fisheries was transferred to the Chesapeake Bay, the capture of shad beginning at the capes, all the shad reaching the river having to run the gauntlet of the pound nets, which are set all the way up the river, from its mouth to the District of Columbia, across their path. The result is that eighty per cent of all the shad are taken outside of the rivers and in the Chesapeake, or in the river's lower estuaries. Under these conditions, it will readily be seen that a decline in the river fisheries has been unavoidable, and the opportunities afforded for natural production are entirely inadequate to keep up the supply. The fisheries are now under conditions mainly artificial, and their main- tenance to this extent is dependent upon artificial propagation.
In connection with artificial propagation, it must be borne in mind that fish planted in the Potomae remain therein a few months and then descend to salt water, and only a small porportion of those which survive and mature can run the gauntlet of the pound nets and find their way back into the river. The effect of artificial propagation upon the fisheries of the Potomac cannot, therefore, be properly meas- ured or estimated by the actual production of the fisheries of this river from year to year, for the reason that the larger proportion of the fish which would enter the Potomac, and be taken by the seines and gill nets in the river, are captured in the bay and at the mouth of the river by the pound nets. Hence it is, that to get a fair estimate of the results of artificial propagation, the Chesapeake basin must be dealt with as a whole.
The following table shows the production of the shad fisheries of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries for the years given:
YEAR.
NO. OF FISH.
VALUE OF FISH.
YEAR.
NO. OF FISH.
VALUE OF FISH.
1880
1,500,100
$201,900
1887
2,860,235
$411,874
1885
1,632,800
228,592
1888
3,960,305
580,185
1886
2,009,742
281,364
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON. .
The following is a statement of the deposits of shad fry in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries by the United States Fish Com- mission, from 1880 to 1891, both years inclusive:
YEAR.
DEPOSIT.
YEAR.
DEPOSIT.
YEAR.
DEPOSIT.
1880
23,428,000
1885
19,632,000
1889
52,225,000
1881
53,755,000
1886
52,835,000
1890
22,627,000
1882
14,885,000
1887
70,199,000
1891
24,777,000
1883
5,948,000
1888
. 84,136,000
Total
432,716,000
1884
8,219,000
The following numbers of shad were confined in the carp grounds until they were seven months old, and then released into the Potomac River: In 1888, 750,000; in 1890, 1,750,000; in 1891, 800,000; total number, 3,300,000.1
The various geologic formations east of the Appalachian Moun- tains are thus classified in a rare and valuable pamphlet prepared by Professor W. J. McGee for the "International Congress of Geologists," which convened in Washington in 1891. Of the Pleistocene period, there are two formations, the alluvium and the Columbia, the latter being from 5 to 40 feet; of the Neocene period, there are two forma- tions, the Lafayette, from 5 to 50 feet thick, and the Chesapeake, from 10 to 125 feet thick; of the Eocene period, there is but one formation, the Pamunkey, which is from 3 to 100 feet thick. These all belong to Cenozoic time, or to the Mammalian age, and the Neocene and Eocene belong to the Tertiary period. Below these is the Cretaceous period, to which belong the Severn and the Potomac formations, the former being from 2 to 25 feet thick, and the latter from 5 to 500 feet. The Cretaceous period belongs to the Reptilian age, or Mesozoic time, as also do the Jurassic and Triassic periods. But it is doubtful whether any portion of even the Jurassic period is exposed in this section of the country. Still beneath the Mesozoic are the Paleozoic and Azoic times; the former comprising the Reptilian, Devonian, and Silurian ages; from which it appears that the exposures of the earth's crust in the vicinity of Washington consist of a very meager portion of geologic formations, and represent a very brief period of geologic history.
1 Statistics kindly supplied by Colonel M. McDonald, United States Fish Commis- sioner.
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NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
Pursuing the description of these formations from the Potomac upward, the Severn "consists of fine black, micaceous and carbonaceous sands, sometimes glauconite, and rather poorly fossiliferous." South- ward from the city, this formation gradually becomes thinner, and finally fails altogether; northward, it increases in thickness and expands.
The Pamunkey formation consists of a homogeneous sheet of sand and clay, with occasional calcareous layers. It commonly abounds in characteristic Eocene fossils. It lies in a gentle antielinal, the great body inclining toward the sea.
The Chesapeake formation is separated from the Pamunkey below and from the Lafayette above, by strong unconformities. It consists of a heavy bed of fine sand and clay, sometimes containing more or less abundant glauconite and infusorial remains and characteristic Miocene fossils. This formation extends eastward to the ocean, and northward and southward for perhaps hundreds of miles.
The Lafayette formation consists of well-rounded, quartzite gravel, and a red or orange-tinted loam. The gravel predominates in the northwestern exposures, and the loam toward the interior of the Coastal plain. The pebbles are derived from the earlier members of the clastics, and the loam from the residua of the Piedmont crystallines. The deposits of the Lafayette formation may be distinguished from those of the younger Columbia by having finer pebbles, more completely water-worn, and more largely quartzite; and they may be discriminated from the older Potomac deposits by the smaller size and better round- ing of the pebbles, by the dearth of arkose, etc. Despite its local diversity, it is remarkably uniform throughout the two hundred thou- sand square miles over which it has been recognized; "indeed, though the youngest member of the clastic series, this formation is at the same time more extensive and more constant in aspect than any other American formation." .
"The Lafayette formation overlaps unconformably all the older members of the Coastal plain series in such a manner as to indicate that all were extensively degraded anterior to its deposition; yet the floor on which the formation rests is more uniform than its own upper surface, indicating that, while the antecedent erosion period was long, the land stood low, so that it was planed nearly to base level, and seldom deeply trenched. During the Post-Lafayette elevation, on the contrary, the land was deeply trenched and not planed, indicating a higher altitude than during the earlier one, but a shorter period of stream work. This record, within the Coastal plain proper, coincides with a geomorphic record found in the Peidmont and Appalachian
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON. .
zones. Throughout these zones the major and most of the minor rivers flow in broad and deep yet steep-sided gorges, excavated in a base-level plain. The Potomac gorge belonging to this category ex- tends from Washington well toward the sources of the river. It is within this gorge that the newer Washington Great Falls Canon is excavated. The same ancient gorge is admirably displayed at Great Falls, and again at the confluence of the Shenandoah, at Harper's Ferry. Moreover, the ancient gorges of this category are best devel- oped in the northern part of the Middle Atlantic, where the Lafayette formation is most extensively degraded. Now, by the concordance of history thus recorded in plain and plateau, the degradation epochs of the adjacent provinces may be correlated, and the ancient gorges of the Piedmont plateau and of the Appalachian zone as well may be referred to the period of high level immediately following deposition. While the positive evidence for this correlation is hardly conclusive, the neg- ative evidence is more decisive: the Coastal plain deposits yield no other record of continent movement of sufficient amplitude and extent to account for this wide-spread topographie feature."
The Columbia formation consists of brown loam or brick clay, grading downward into a bed of gravel or bowlders. Toward the mouths of the large rivers the loam generally becomes thinner, and the bowlder bed thicker, and in the several parts of the formation its constituents vary greatly in quantity. As a general thing, the deposit represents littoral and estuarine deposition. The materials differ from those of the alluvium in the greater size of the bowlders, in greater coarseness of sediments in general, and in the less complete trituration and lixiviation of the elements. These differences indicate long, cold winters, with, of course, heavy snow fall and thick ice, but do not indicate glaciation during this period.
"Traced northward, the formation is found to pass under the terminal moraine and the drift-sheet it fringes; at the same time, the size of the bowlders and other indications of contemporaneous cold multiply, and an element of ice-ground rock flour occurs in the upper member, from which it was long inferred to represent an early episode of glaciation, and during the present summer Salisbury has found it to pass into a premorainal drift-sheet in Northern New Jersey. From the relative extent of erosion and degree of oxidation, the Columbia formation and the corresponding drift-sheet are inferred to be five to fifty times as old as the later glacial deposit, and a rude but useful measure of the duration of the Pleistocene is thus obtained."
The Middle Atlantic slope is to a great extent destitute of alluvium.
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NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
What is called the " fall line" is the common boundary of two strongly distinguished provinces. To the west of this "fall line," the land is rising so rapidly that the rivers are unable to cut their channels down to base level; while to the eastivard of it, the land is sinking so rapidly that deposition does not keep pace with the sinking.
" Anterior to the vaguely limited period which may be assigned to alluvium deposition, the land stood higher than now, for the ante- cedent formations are deeply trenched by the Potomac, the Anacostia, and other Coastal plain rivers; but whether it was the entire region, or only the now sinking Coastal plain that formerly stood higher, is not certainly known. It seems probable, however, that both Peidmont and Coastal provinces were elevated after Columbia deposition; that both were subsequently depressed to some extent, and that, while the down- ward movement of the Coastal plain continues, the movement of the Piedmont plateau was long since reversed."
The following extract from the "Guide to Washington and its Scientific Institutions," shows the latest estimates as to the length of time which has elapsed since the Potomac formation, and also since the Carboniferous era:
" This Sub-Potomac unconformity gives some indication of the relative position of the Potomac formation in the Mesozoic period, as well as of the relative duration of the several Coastal plain periods of deposition and degradation. Let Post-Columbia erosion represent unity; then Post-Lafayette degradation may be represented by 1,000, and the Post-Potomac and Pre-Lafayette base-level period may be represented by 100,000; then, using the same scale, the Post-Newark and Pre-Potomac erosion must be measured by something like 10,- 000,000, and the Post-Carboniferous and Pre-Newark degradation by 20,000,000 or 50,000,000. These figures are but rude approximations; they are, moreover, in one sense, misleading, since degradation undoubt- edly proceeded much more rapidly during the earlier eons, yet they give some conception of the relative importance of a long series of episodes in continent growth, and indicate definitely the wide sepa- ration of the Newark and Potomac periods."
The following extract from Mr. McGee's article, already quoted from, clearly shows the chronological relation borne by prehistoric to historic times:
"In the later geology of the Middle Atlantic slope, three episodes stand out so strongly as to overshadow all others. The first is that represented by the Potomac formation; the second is that of the first ice invasion and the deposition of the Columbia formation; the third
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
is the shorter ice invasion, during which the earliest known relics of men were entombed in aqueo-glacial deposits; and then follows the present, by which these episodes of the past are interpreted and meas- ured. In the archaeology of the Potomac Valley, there are three salient and distinct stages, the first nearly coinciding in time with the last geologic episode. The first stage is that of the origin and develop- ment of the unknown ancestor of the race; the second stage is that of the human prototype, who manufactured and used rude implements in an unknown way and for unknown purposes; the third stage is that of the dominance of savage races, whose homes, habits, and imple- ments and weapons are known; and there is the present stage of multifarious characteristics, one of which is the desire to interpret and elneidate the earlier stages. The common ground of the archaeologist and geologist lies about where the series of stages in the development of man overlaps upon the series of episodes in the development of the earth."
Following is a description of the economic geology of Washington and vicinity, prepared especially for this work, at the request of the writer of this chapter, by Professor W. J. McGee, of the United States Geological Survey.
" There are in the District of Columbia and immediately adjacent territory eight formations or groups of rocks, each of which yields materials of economic value. The formations and the more important resources found within each are as follows:
Age.
Formation.
Economic Materials
Pleistocene
Columbia
Brick clays, building sand, gravel, and cobbles.
Lafayette Gravel and cobbles.
Neocene
Chesapeake Infusorial earth.
Eocene
Pamunkey
Green sand or glauconitic marl.
Cretaceous
Severn
Building sand and molding sand.
Potomac Brick clays, pottery clays, building sand, gravel, cob- bles, building stone, and iron ores.
Archæan.
Piedmont gneiss ... Building material, macadam, gold, and steatite.
Jura-Trias .. Newark Brown stone, Potomac marble.
"The Columbia formation is a sheet of brick clay, or loam, with a bed of sand, gravel, or bowlders at the base. It lies on both sides of the Potomac River below Georgetown up to altitudes of one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty feet above tide, practically the whole of the city being founded upon it. Over the eastern part of the area occupied by the city, particularly between the Capitol and the city jail, and between Graceland Cemetery and the Pennsylvania Rail-
45
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
way, the upper portion of the deposit is a valuable brick clay. South of the river the brick elay layer is even more extensive, stretching from Jackson City westward to Arlington Cemetery and southward to Alexandria, and in this tract the brick clay is quite thick, often reaching from ten to fifteen feet. The clay makes an excellent red brick, from which most of the buildings of the city have been con- structed. It is also used to some extent for pressed briek. The deposit is similar, not only geologically but in composition and in the character of the product, to that of the well-known 'Philadelphia brick clay.'
"Sonth of the Potomac, a bed of excellent building sand is found beneath the brick clay, and a corresponding sand bed is sometimes found in the eastern part of the city of Washington. In the western part of the city, a bed of gravel or of cobble stones and bowlders, which are largely used for guttering, for the foundation of asphalt pavements, and for other purposes, is frequently found below the brick clay or loamy member in a position corresponding to that of the sand bed.
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