Fish Commissioner to stock the river with salmon.   The experiment was faithfully tried for the full term, but was a total failure, for I have never heard of any salmon worth mentioning being caught in the river.
   It was somewhere about the year, 1843, that an effort was made to have the U. S. Government cut a hole through the beach, near the present new mouth, between the Third and Fourth Cliff, and Ex-President John Quincy Adams, then Representative to Congress, was induced to ride down to Marshfield and visit the spot where the new cut was desired.   But after a hearing from the citizens pro and con, the authorities thought it not feasible, chiefly on account of the injury it was claimed would be caused to the meadows near the upland and islands by overflow or strong tides.   But nothing daunted a large party gathered together, and with picks, hoes, shovels, axes, etc., etc., with plenty of ox teams and horse teams to convey them, marched in the darkness of the night, with lanterns in hand to the beach, and there they began operations, dug and toiled throughout the vigils of the night.   They dared not undertake the task in the day time, because it would be a criminal offense to be caught infringing against the rights of property vested in the United States.
   Morning came and the party journeyed back to their homes, not, however, until they had partially, if not wholly, accomplished their purpose in getting a cut or hole through the beach from the river to the sea, but the great obstacle towards the complete accomplishment of their purpose, was the hard meadow bank, nearly as hard as rock, underlying the sandy and muddy upper strata of the river bed.
   The river flowed partially through the cut, but in a short time it filled up again, and thus all the labors of these River Patriots were in vain, but it is the opinion of the author that the filling in was never again as solid and compact as before the cut was made, and probably the force of the sea in the