FISHERY INDUSTRIES. 39 



of salmon being taken, with few exceptions, in the successive seasons. 

 The pack increased from 600,000 cases in 1900 to 1,666,000 in 1918. 

 It then dropped to 589,464 cases in 1919, a decrease of about 65 per 

 cent. Attention has been directed in the past to these constantly 

 increasing catches and the encroachments they meant upon the num- 

 ber of salmon necessary for the maintenance of the runs and the cor- 

 responding reduction of the safety quota. It may be that the pack- 

 ers, who seemed to be devoting all their energies to increasing pro- 

 duction, viewed the situation too optimistically during the plenteous 

 years and that facts of vital importance were overlooked until the 

 sudden break in 1919 from superficially satisfactory conditions. 

 Wliile there may be many speculations as to the cause of the let-down 

 in 1919, the best explanation is that it was due to overfishing. This 

 was in substance concurred in by various salmon packers, who agreed 

 to the necessity of further limitation by departmental regulations 

 upon fishing at a hearing on the matter held at Seattle in November, 

 1919. 



Operations on the Yukon River were greater than in 1918, as a 

 pacK of approximately 57,000 cases of kmg and chum salmon was 

 made by the one company there established. In addition a few hun- 

 dred barrels of salmon were pickled. Approximately 500,000 salmon 

 were used in the preparation of these products. All commercial fish- 

 ing was carried on oelow the junction of the Clear River and the 

 Yukon, and according to the reports of operators about two-thirds 

 of the catch of salmon was made in Bering Sea off the mouth of the 

 Yukon. 



SALMON CATCH AND FORMS OF GEAR, 



The greater part of the salmon catch of ^Vlaska is made by three 

 kinds of apparatus, namely, seines, gill nets, and pound nets. Sta- 

 tistics show that a total of 800 seines were operated in 1919, aggre- 

 gating in length 137,284 fathoms. This is a decrease of 88 seines 

 from the number used in 1918, but an increase of 6,157 fathoms in 

 the amount of seine web. There was an increase of 28 in the num- 

 ber of seines in southeast ^Vlaska, and a decrease of 39 and 27 in 

 central and western iVlaska, respectively. The total number of giU 

 nets used in the salmon industry in 1919 was 4,120, the combined 

 length of which was 459,937 fathoms, a decrease of 19,175 fathoms 

 in the amount of gill-net web operated in Alaska as a whole. Each 

 district shows a decline in the use of this form of gear. In southeast 

 Alaska there were 3,172 fathoms less than in 1918; in central Alaska, 

 4,552 fathoms less; and in western Alaska, 11,451 fathoms less. 

 These decreases were due in large part to the collapse of the pickling 

 industry. 



There were operated in connection with the salmon industry 630 

 pound nets, of which 484 were driven and 146 were floating, or an 

 mcrease of 78 over the number used in 1918. Southeast Alaska is 

 credited with 301 driven and 143 floating traps, gains of 11 and 64, 

 respectively; central Alaska had 172 driven traps, an increase of 6 

 over 1918, and 3 floating traps, the first to be used in the district; 

 western Alaska had 11 driven traps, as against 17 in 1918, a decrease 

 of 6. 



Taking Alaska as a whole, there was an increase in the number of 

 fathoms of seines of 4^ per cent over 1918; there was a decrease in 



