portion is preserved for human food ; and, above all things, 

 to study the grandest specimen of piscatorial topography 

 ever exhibited, in the official fishery map of the United 

 States, which I hope will not leave this country until it has 

 stamped its merits indelibly upon our department. 



I now come to the consideration of the most practical 

 matter, not only connected with the subject of this paper, 

 but with the outcome of this great international ex- 

 change of experience and ideas on fish supply, viz., the 

 possible result of the utilization of our inland waters, of 

 course confining my statistics to Ireland, while generalizing 

 the knowledge I have acquired in this building on the 

 point. 



My debut in connection with these Conferences took 

 place at the reading of a paper on coarse fish by Mr. Marston, 

 which, however, was principally confined to the production 

 in artificial waters. The discussion on that paper, however, 

 led me to put to myself the query — how many thousand 

 acres of small lakes exist in Ireland, all more or less con- 

 taining fish bad and good, which now contributing nothing 

 to the food supply of this great country, could with small 

 expenditure be made to add a defined annual tonnage to 

 the present amount of a most wholesome, economical, and 

 appetizing nutriment for the poor ? No sooner struck 

 with the importance of the demonstration than I hastened 

 to acquire statistical information. I knew that by an 

 application to the Ordnance Survey Department in 

 Phcenix Park the exact return of the area of each lake 

 in Ireland could be supplied me from the six-inch map, 

 and so the application was made, but time would not 

 allow for the calculation, so I was obliged to fall back upon 

 that wondrous compilation, Thom's Directory, and there I 

 found the area of inland waters in each county given, and 



