70 



Within even fifty years no waters of the same extent in 

 the world could show such numbers of shad and herring 

 as the Potomac River, below Great Falls. Martin's 

 "Grazeteer," of Virginia, published in 1834, at Alexandria, 

 states that the preceding year twenty-live and a half 

 millions of shad were taken by the various Potomac 

 fisheries, as well as 750,000,000 of fresh-water herring. 

 This, by a moderate estimate, would amount to 600,000,000 

 pounds of fish secured in six weeks in this single system 

 of waters. 



This " Gazeteer" also states that during the same year 

 nearly 1,000,000 barrels of fish were packed on the Poto- 

 mac, requiring as many bushels of salt. These were con- 

 sumed in the United States, or shijDped to the West Indies 

 and elsewhere. What is the condition of things at the 

 l^resent time ? In 1866 the catch of shad on the Potomac 

 had dwindled to 1,326,000 ; 1878, to 224,000— the latter not 

 one per cent, of the yield of 1833. The catch of herring 

 in 1833 (estimated), as stated at 760,000,000, had been 

 reduced in 1866 to 21,000,000; in 1876, to 12,000,000; and 

 in 1878, to 5,000,000 — again less than one per cent, of the 

 yield of the first-mentioned period. 



A similar reduction has taken j)lace in the abundance of 

 striped bass, or rockfish, a species inferior to none in its 

 excellence and economical value for food. 



John Josslyn, Gent, in 1660, says that 3,000 bass were 

 taken at one haul of the net in New England. Thomas 

 Morton, in 1632, says, of the Merrimac, that he lias seen 

 stopped in the river at one time as many fish as would load 

 a ship of a hundred tons, and that at the going out of the 

 tide the river was sometimes so full of them that it seemed 

 as if one might go over on their backs dry-shod. 



Mr. Higginson, in 1630, says that the nets usually took 

 more bass than they were able to land. Even so recently 

 as 1846, 148 tons are said to have been taken on Martha's 

 Vineyard at two hauls of the seine. Per contra^ the catch 



