392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



or agreement, or has even been the subject of diplomatic discussion. 

 With the single exception of Vattel, the older writers on international 

 law were silent on this matter, and even Vattel seems not to have clearly 

 distinguished it from the exercise of jurisdiction over migrrtory fishes 

 in the seas near the marginal belt, a doctrine which has long since been 

 discredited. 



Very natural was the silence of the older publicists on this subject, 

 since there was no occasion for recognition of this view until a very 

 recent period. The spirit of scientific investigation and of industrial 

 development is everywhere, and in few directions have these made 

 greater progress in the last score or two of years than in the possibilities 

 of cultivating the sea bottoms. Millions of dollars' worth of oysters 

 are now grown on areas which thirty years ago were barren wastes. 

 Biologists are obtaining excellent results in sponge culture in the Gulf 

 of Mexico, and are investigating coral growth in the Mediterranean. 

 Careful observers are awakening to the possibilities of pearl culture, not 

 simply to raise the mollusks which yield pearls fitfully and at rare 

 intervals, but to insure and to increase the yield of pearls within these 

 mollusks, and thus to obtain remunerative returns without the arduous 

 toil and the element of hazard inseparable from pearling as now 

 prosecuted. 



And must the work of these investigators, must the enterprises which 

 they stimulate, be restricted to the bounds of the marine league while 

 the broad areas of shallow bays and gulfs remain barren? Must we 

 plant and harvest but along the wave-washed shores of the maritime 

 belt and leave the rich meadows of the sea bottoms to waste ? Must the 

 work be handicapped by the refusal of international law to concede to 

 these enterprises the elements of ownership, which must be wholly lack- 

 ing unless territorial jurisdiction apply to the areas which they exploit ? 



Numerous instances exist in which fisheries for pearl oysters, etc., 

 prosecuted beyond the marginal belt, are the subject of fostering care 

 on the part of a government or its people. By careful supervision as to 

 close seasons, size limits, etc., and in some cases special preparation of 

 the bottom and even removal of predaceous enemies, the output from 

 these areas is conserved and increased. Instances of this kind, under 

 state authority or recognition, may be regarded as an occupation of 

 the bed of the sea, and territorial jurisdiction should rightly extend to 

 them even though they be carried on beyond the marginal belt ordinarily 

 recognized by international law. Even Grotius's Mare Uberum is 

 founded upon the old doctrine of Roman law that there can be no 

 property in anything without occupation. And while the vagrant 

 waters of the ocean can not be subjected and occupied, the sponge beds 

 and pearl reefs can be even as the hills and the prairies. 



This view is founded not only on justice, but likewise on necessity. 



