128 IJULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



salmou, fur-seal skins, pearl shell of various sorts, cod, and shrimp i)rod- 

 ncts, in the order of their value. 



In the table Asia includes Eastern Siberia, Japan, Batavia, and Ma- 

 nila. Australasia includes Australia and New Zealand; Central America 

 includes also Panama, Mexico, and some small shipments to Peru and 

 Brazil. Oceanica embraces Apia, Bonham Islands, Borabora, Fiji, and 

 Tahiti. 



There was hardly any specified mov^ement in shell-fish, most of the 

 excellent canned products beiug consumed at home or as ship stores. 

 A single shipment of six cases oysters to Mexico is noted. 



The total exports of the port of San Francisco by sea in 1883 were 

 $47,049,172 ; the total exports of fisher^' products not including whale 

 products were about $4,000,000, or nearly 9 per cent, of the total. It 

 is ])robable that no other port of the United States can show a greater 

 relative value of exported products due to the fishing industries. 



Washington, D. C, March 5, 1884. 



58.— IN REOARI> TO THE "SEA-SERPENT" OF I^STERATURE. 



By Pa-of. SAMUJEI. GAMMAN. 

 [From a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



I have no idea that we shall ever find a huge unknown lung-breath- 

 ing Saurian as a foundation for the stories. The existence of types of 

 extinct Sauria of various geological periods is possible but improbable. 

 The geological record is very incomiilete. In the main it is the shoal 

 water or shore and surfiice forms of the sea, and the land forms, that 

 have been recorded by geology. And this record has become indistinct 

 or entirely obliterated by changes in the rocks in the early formation. 

 The earliest forms were marine and the depths were the original cen- 

 ters of divergence. The earliest forms of animals in regard to solidity 

 were like those now living in great depths, i. e., they were gelatinous, 

 flabby, or loose in structure, and not bony and hard or such as would be 

 I)reserved in the rocks. In consequence, it seems as if our hopes of solu- 

 tions of problems of origin and divergence, of knowledge of the beginning 

 itself were best placed on the results of the study of animals in condi- 

 tions most similar to those of the beginning, on the results of deep-sea 

 researches. Within a few years our imperfect apparatus has secured 

 from great depths a host of strange creatures, but none of the largest 

 or strongest. In fact, we have had scarcely more than mere suggestions 

 of what may exist, and, in view of them, shoidd not be surprised at 

 anything that may come up. If there is a '• sea-serpent" yet unknown 

 to scientists, it is likely to prove a deep-sea fish or Selachian. 



Cambridge, Mass., January, 22, 1884. 



