REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 93 
early in November, and on the 19th of that month the vessel was 
formally taken over by the Navy for the period of the war. 
The steamer Fish Hawk was used by the Navy under an informal 
agreement from July 1 until January 11, when the vessel was sent 
to the yard of the Old Dominion Marine Railway Corporation at 
Berkley, Va., for repairs to hull and machinery, for which a special 
appropriation was provided. The principal items of work on the 
hull embrace a complete overhauling throughout, rebolting of sheath- 
ing, replacing worn plates, rearranging and modernizing space and 
quarters, a new keel, and a new main deck. There were installed a 
new condenser and fore-and-aft compound engines, designed to 
develop 200 horsepower. Although the repairs were not completed 
until August, 1918, the vessel was taken over by the Navy on July 18. 
Two of the smaller steamers of the Bureau, the Halcyon and the 
Phalarope, have also been at the disposal of the Navy Department 
during the entire year. 
Three of the older vessels, the Grampus, the Curlew, and the 
Blue Wing, having outlived their usefulness, have been condemned 
and sold. 
While the Roosevelt was discharging cargo of supplies at the seal 
islands in May, 1918, an epidemic which had broken out among the 
crew was diagnosed as diphtheria. After the administration of anti- 
toxin by the physician at St. Paul Island, the Roosevelt proceeded 
to Unalaska to enter quarantine. While there a situation developed 
which led to the Roosevelt’s making a most noteworthy series of 
rescues of lives and vessels. A number of cannery vessels had become 
caught in the ice in Bering Sea, and a great loss of life and property 
was imminent. Request was made for the assistance of the Coast 
Guard cutter Unalga and of the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt started 
out on the rescue work as soon as possible, and by reason of its con- 
struction the master was able to take it through the heavy pack ice 
and to meet the emergency in a way which probably could not have 
been done with any other vessel afloat. In the course of the opera- 
tions the Roosevelt rescued the St. Nicholas, the Centennial, and the 
Star of Chile. 'Twenty-one persons from the wrecked vessel 7'acoma 
were also rescued from a water-logged iceberg. It was estimated 
that at the time of rendering assistance to the St. Nicholas that vessel 
could not have survived more than 12 hours; more than 300 persons 
were aboard. The Centennial, with 161 persons aboard, might have 
survived another week at the time of its rescue. 
FISHERY MATTERS IN CONGRESS. 
No legislation affecting the Bureau aside from appropriation bills 
was passed by Congress during the fiscal year 1918, but a number of 
important measures in which the Bureau is concerned or interested 
were introduced and considered by the appropriate committees, in- 
cluding (1) a bill authorizing the construction of a building for the 
Bureau of Fisheries in the District of Columbia, (2) a bill to protect 
and conserve the halibut fisheries of the Pacific Ocean, (3) a bill to 
prohibit traffic in lobsters taken outside the territorial waters of 
Canada by United States vessels during the close season for lobsters 
in such waters, and (4) bills transferring the control of the fisheries 
of Alaska to the Territorial Legislature. 
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