42.-NOTES ON THE FISHERIES AND THE FISHERY INDUSTRIES OF 



PUGET SOUND. 



BY JAMES G. SWAN. 



ON THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE GIANT KELP AND OTHER SEAWEEDS OF 

 THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA. 



The giant kelp, which lines the shores of the northwest coast, is the Nereocystis of 



the order of Laminar iacece. Harvey, in his Nereis Boreali Americana* thus describes 



this species : 



Olive-colored, inarticulate seaweeds, usually tough and leathery in substance. The plants of 

 this older are almost always large, frequently of gigantic size, with a solid cylindrical stem, which 

 expands into a hollow cylinder or tube, terminating in a globular head, from which fronds or aprons 

 float on the surface of the water. 



The Nereocystis of the northwest coast is said, when fully grown, to have a stem 

 measuring 300 feet in length, which bears at its summit an air bulb, from which a tuft 

 of upwards of fifty long, streamer-like leaves extend, each of which is from 30 to 40 

 feet in length. The stem, which anchors this floating mass, though no thicker than a 

 common window cord, is of great strength and flexibility and has for ages been used 

 by the natives as fishing lines, being first cut of the required length, which is where 

 the stem begins to expand into the hollow tube, and varies from 10 to 15 fathoms, then 

 soaked in fresh water in a running brook until it is nearly bleached, then stretched, 

 rubbed to the required size, and dried in the smoke in the lodge. When dried, it is 

 very brittle, but when w T et, it is exceedingly strong, and equal to the best flax or 

 cotton fishing lines of the white fishermen. 



These pieces, varying from 10 to 15 fathoms each, are knotted together to the 

 required length of 80 fathoms, required in the deep-water fishing around the entrance 

 to Fuca Strait, or 200 fathoms at Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, where 

 the natives take the black cod at that profound depth. 



Until within a few years the coast Indians used the upper or hollow portion of 

 these great kelp stems as receptacles for holding dogfish oil which, together with the 

 paunches ofseals and sea lions and whale gut, properly prepared, were the utensils 

 found in every house for holding the family supplies of whale, seal, or salmon oil 

 which are used as articles of food, or for dogfish oil which is used for trading pur- 

 poses only. Now, however, the Indians use coal-oil cans, barrels, and other utensils 

 easily procured from the white traders, and the use of kelp for holding oil is nearly 

 abandoned. 



"Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, May, 1858. 



371 



