10 INLAND FISHERIES. 



This shows the total amount removed as 5,931,550 cubic yards ; 

 besides this is a larger amount done by cities and by private par- 

 ties. That it has some effect seems certain wlien we consider that 

 two square miles, one yard deep or seventy-two (72) square miles, 

 one inch deep is thus dumped in our baj;^ and carried about by 

 the tides ; the extent of the effect none can tell, but it is doubtless 

 one of the waj^s that man has for disturbing what has been 

 erroneously called " balance of nature." 



This term has been much used and as applied to the fisheries, 

 we consider a snare and a delusion. As used, it implies that 

 nature has established and would maintain^a certain equilibrium 

 in regard to animal life in the ocean, but for the acts of man ; 

 that man bears no part in the economy of nature, his acts are 

 therefore unnatural, artificial and that he alone is a disturbing 

 force. 



Xow we believe with Sam Slick, that man has a good deal of 

 nature about him, and that he should be weighed and reckoned 

 with other forces of nature. That his is the most potent, none 

 can for a moment believe. Exactly what his relation is to other 

 forces as a destructive agent we cannot say, but upon that one 

 point depends the issue of the controversy over our fisheries. 



We must deny that God or nature has any such laws as im^Dlied 

 in the phrase " balance of nature." Nature has no balance as im- 

 plied. When she goes on the rampage she upsets things generally 

 and does not stay, because to go farther would disturb the ' bal- 

 ance.' She has various ways of marshalling her forces and undoes 

 her own or man's Avork of centuries in a minute. 



The whale, the shark, the seal, the blue-fish cannot be counted 

 out of the category of nature's forces. Does any one know of any 

 retaining power that stays their hungrj^ and destructive jaws 

 when tlieii prey is reduced to the limit of this " balance of nature?" 

 Does any convulsion of nature or any of its forces stop before up- 

 setting the " balance ?" 



We cited the work of man in our bay in twenty-five (25) years ; 



