THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 24 
According to Schultz (Rep. U. S. I. C.), the annual catch of fish in 
the Caspian Sea and its tributaries amounts to 68,000,000 pounds, worth 
about $10,500,000. 
The subject of the yield of the fisheries af the United States and the 
Dominion of Canada is of more special interest in the present report. 
So far as Canada is concerned an excellent system of supervision by the 
Government enables us to gather, with more or less accuracy, the re- 
turns as to the number of vessels, of men, and the general yield for 
the different classes of objects in the various portions of the Dominion ; 
and which, although these returns are probably considerably below the 
actual figures, still answer a useful purpose as a basis for comparison 
and for obtaining a general average. 
Newfoundland, which is not a part of the Dominion, has unfort- 
unately no corresponding record to which reference may be made. The 
case is equally unsatisfactory in the United States. Here the General 
Government does not pretend to exercise any supervision in the collection 
of statistics of the sea fisheries, with the exception of such as are con- 
ducted by a certain class of vessels, occupied in foreign waters. Of 
the great local business of fishing, either by means of small boats that 
go out to a short distance from the land or the larger coasting vessels, 
we have no reliable data. It is true that certain States, especially 
Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, provide for the inspection 
of pickled fish, which is branded according to the several degrees of 
excellence; and this furnishes us, as far as that class of products is 
concerned, with tolerably reliable information. Other products, how- 
ever, are unrecorded, and only an approximation to the amount can be 
made. The State of Massachusetts has, however, lateiy undertaken to 
secure reliable facts under this head, and the commissioners of inland 
fisheries have been empowered to require, under suitable penalties, an 
annual return of the yield of every weir, pound, and gill-net on the 
coast. 
While it is probable that the supply of fish on the outer banks and 
in the deep sea, away from the immediate coast, is as great as that of 
former years, alamentable falling off is to be appreciated in the capture 
of anadromous fish, such as the shad, salmon, and the alewife, as well as 
of many species belonging immediately to the coast, such as the striped 
_ bass, the scup, and other fish. 
Fortunately, it is believed they are capable of remedy by proper leg- 
islation and protection, artificial propagation, etc., and that we may look 
forward in the distant future to a very considerable return to the for- 
mer very desirable state and condition of the fisheries. 
In proof of the abundance formerly existing I will only refer to the 
chapter under that head in the first report of the United States Fish 
Commission, in which the quotations are supplied from early historical 
records, extending back to the first peopling of the country by the whites. 
The capture of thousands of striped bass by means of nets stretched 

