872 KEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



January 5. — Turbot that was weak is dead. 



January G. — Fouud a sole out of the can ou the gratiug — sailors let the 

 water ou too strong ; the lish being alive was put back. Sailors promise 

 more care ; spoke to them about temperature, cautioning not to use hose 

 if the water was cold, no danger, however, until near the banks of New- 

 foundland. 



January 7. — All looking nicely ; men washed another fish out at 6 p. 

 m.; find it is another set of men in kindness giving the fish an extra 

 change. 



January 11. — This morning found the last turbot and fifteen soles 

 dead; the water at midnight was 42°; this morning at 7.30 it is 46°. 

 The men say that they were all right at 4 when they changed the water ; 

 it has been very cold during tLe night ; ijerhaps the fish were killed by a 

 sudden change of warm water at about 58°, but which had cooled down 

 before my arising. Emptied one tank, put it over the steam-pipe, threw 

 out the gravel which had bruised some of the fish, and put the remaining 

 six soles into it. 



January 12. — On the banks; very cold; three of the soles dead and 

 one missing; the two remaining ones were brought through alive with- 

 out change of water from this until the 16th. 



January IG. — Cape Cod light visible; took the two soles out in a 

 bucket to get the temperature down from 58^ at 6 a. m.; at 7 they are 

 at 440. On consultation with the captain as to the best place for deposit, 

 there not being enough to warrant employing a boat to go out from 

 Boston, he recommended '' Stelwagen bank," some two or three miles 

 off Nahant, a sandy bank separated from a rocky shore by blue mud. 

 At 8.30 we reached this place, and I lowered th« bucket near the sur- 

 face and emptied it by a cord attached to the bottom. This was in 18 

 fathoms of water, the surface temperature of which was 31°, while that 

 in the bucket was 36°; had no means of getting the bottom temperature. 



The temperatures during the trip were as follows, that of the air 

 being in the room and bore very little relation to that outside : 



