592 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
exceeds 2,900,000,000 pounds, valued at more than $90,000,000. While it thus 
appears that the fisheries, on the whole, have prospered, there is convincing 
evidence that many of our great fisheries are suffering actual depletion. I 
need not dwell upon this fact, for it has been treated fully already to-day. 
The condition of the fisheries is even more alarming, however, when we 
consider the possibility of future development. While it is true that the Ameri- 


10) 
1394 1900 \St0 \S290 \930 
Fic. 16.—Expenditures for scientific inquiry of the bureau, compared with all 
civil expenditures of the Government and with national wealth (expressed 
as mantissas of the logarithms of dollars) 
can Nation is not a fish-eating people, the great importance of sea food in the 
balanced dietary, recently demonstrated, makes the fisheries an indispensable 
source of healthful focd. The increase in population of this country during the 
last decade exceeded that of any previous period and will, in all probability, 
continue to increase for many decades. Moreover, recent developments in re- 
frigeration, preservation, and distribution of sea foods, together with improve- 
ments in marketing, compel the conviction that we are on the threshhold of 
