282 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



form immense banks along the shores, and the fisheries furnish every 

 year, for the public consumption, a mass of alimentary matter of which 

 it is impossible to form any idea in Europe. There are, besides, in the 

 bays, inlets, straits, &c, numerous beds of mollusks, known under the gen- 

 eral name of clams, of which the most important are the soft clam and 

 the round clam, the Mya armaria and Venus mercenaria of naturalists. 



The oysters, the Venus mercenaria, and the My as, to speak only of 

 these species, enter so largely into the public means of sustenance that 

 a failure of these products would be a material calamity. 



In the city of New York, the most populous center of the United 

 States, the commerce in oysters is estimated at 35,000,000 francs, or 

 $5,000,000 ; and the trade of the whole country is valued at 100,000,000 

 francs, ($50,000,000,) although these high figures do not represent the 

 total amount of products, since along the coast and the rivers there is a 

 daily consumption which cannot be estimated. 



The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Eeview, for 1850, esti- 

 mated the trade in oysters of the principal cities as follows : 



Bushels. 



Virginia, (State) 1, 050, 000 



Baltimore 3, 500, 000 



Philadelphia 2, 500, 000 



New York 6, 950, 000 



Fair Haven 2, 000, 000 



Other cities, such as Boston and Providence 4, 000, 000 



Total 20, 000, 000 



Calculating two hundred oysters only as a bushel we have the enor- 

 mous amount of 4,000,000,000 mollusks consumed. 



Mr. Meigs asserted, in the American Institute for the same year, that 

 in the city of New York more money is expended for oysters than for 

 meat. This delicious article of food has become so necessary with every 

 class of the population that scarcely a town in the whole country can 

 be found without its regular supply. By means of railroads and water- 

 channels, oysters in the shell, or out of the shell, preserved in ice, in 

 pickle, or canned, are carried even to the remotest parts of the United 

 States. The cities of Fair Haven, Boston, and Baltimore are at the 

 head of the interior trade, which, for six months in the year, gives 

 employment to a large number of persons. 



unique. From Cape Fear to the extremity of Long Island sandy beaches are almost 

 universally interposed between the ocean and the main land, which run parallel with 

 1he shore at a distance of from one to several miles. These sometimes form islands, 

 varying in width from several yards to a half milo, and of great length. These sandy 

 formations make bays, sounds, lagunes, &c, in the most favorble condition for the 

 multiplication of fish and mollusks. Besides, as the openings communicating with the 

 sea are not very numerous, in places where rivers and streams empty, the water is 

 less salt than in the open sea, which still further increases the chances for the pro- 

 duction of certain kinds of fish and mollusks, particularly oysters. 



