192 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
8. CONCLUSION. 
To the reader who would demand an exact economic equivalent for the labor and 
money here expended, our answer must be a very general one. Science and industry 
move together. Industry is helpless without the aid of science, and the greatest indus- 
trial progress is at present being made by those countries which realize this fact most 
fully. But science can never prosper if forced to play the réle of a servant. She must 
be free to pursue her own ends without being halted at every step by the challenge: 
Cui bono? The attempt to restrict our scientific experts to problems of obvious eco- 
nomic importance would be equivalent to depriving ourselves of their services altogether. 
It is to-day accepted as a commonplace that all the great discoveries of a practical 
nature have rested ultimately upon principles first brought to light by the seeker after 
truth. The enlightened manufacturer of Germany looks upon a well-paid scientific 
investigator as a good invesment. As a result of this policy the rest of the world is 
looking on uneasily, while its own industries pass into the hands of this farsighted 
competitor. Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries, the great fishing nations 
of Europe, have long been leaders in the scientific investigation of the sea. And in 
recent years we have witnessed the formation of an international council, representing 
all of those nations having an immediate interest in the fisheries of the North Sea, and 
organized for the study of hydrographic and biological problems as well as of purely 
economic ones. To Americans there should be no novelty in all this. Let us keep in 
mind the oft-quoted words of the distinguished founder of our Fish Commission in 
outlining the policy adopted by him: 
As the history of the fishes themselves would not be complete without a thorough knowledge of 
their associates in the sea, especially such as prey upon them or in turn constitute their food, it was 
considered necessary to prosecute searching inquiries on these points, especially as one supposed cause 
of the diminution of the fishes was the alleged decrease or displacement of the objects upon which they 
subsist. 
Furthermore, it was thought likely that peculiarities in the temperature of the water at different 
depths, its chemical constitution, the percentage of carbonic-acid gas and of ordinary air, its currents, 
etc., might all bear an important part in the general sum of influences upon the fisheries; and the 
inquiry, therefore, ultimately resolved itself into an investigation of the chemical and physical char- 
acter of the water, and of the natural history of its inhabitants, whether animal or vegetable. It was 
considered expedient to omit nothing, however trivial or obscure, that might tend to throw light upon 
the subject of inquiry, especially as without such exhaustive investigation it would be impossible to 
determine what were the agencies which exercised the predominant influences upon the economy of 
the fisheries. 
So that if we can not, from our present labors, offer any suggestions of direct value 
to the practical fisherman, we trust that we have at least added to the intelligent under- 
standing of the marine life of our coast. And we likewise trust that the ultimate benefit 
to the practical fisherman will be as great as that to the man of science. 
