INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. I4I 
Very natural, however, was the silence of the older publicists on this sub- 
ject, since there was no occasion for recognition of this view until a very recent 
period. The spirit of scientific investigation and of industrial development is 
everywhere, and in few directions have these made greater progress in the 
last score or two of years than in the possibilities of cultivating the sea bottoms. 
Millions of dollars worth of oysters are now grown on areas which thirty years 
ago were barren wastes. Biologists are obtaining excellent results in sponge 
culture in the Gulf of Mexico, and in coral growth in the Mediterranean. Careful 
observers are awakening to the possibilities of pearl culture, not simply to raise 
the mollusks which yield pearls fitfully and at rare intervals, but to insure and 
to increase the yield of pearls within these mollusks, and thus to obtain remu- 
nerative returns without the arduous toil and the element of hazard inseparable 
from pearling as now prosecuted. And must the work of these investigators, 
must the enterprises which they stimulate, be restricted to the bounds of the 
marine league, while the broad areas of shallow bays and gulfs remain barren? 
Must we plant and harvest but along the hedgerows of the maritime belt and 
leave the rich meadows of the sea bottoms to waste? Must the work be handi- 
capped by the refusal of international law to concede to these enterprises the 
elements of private ownership, which must be wholly lacking unless territorial 
jurisdiction apply to the areas which they exploit? 
Numerous instances exist in which fisheries for pearl oysters, etc., prose- 
cuted beyond the marginal belt, are the subject of fostering care on the part of a 
government or its people. By careful supervision as to close seasons, size limits, 
etc., and in some cases special preparation of the bottom and even removal of 
predacious enemies, the output from these areas is conserved and increased. 
Instances of this kind under state authority or recognition may be regarded 
as an occupation of the bed of the sea, and territorial jurisdiction should rightly 
extend to them, even though they be carried on beyond the marginal belt 
ordinarily recognized by international law. Even Grotius’ ‘“‘ Mare Liberum”’ is 
founded upon the old doctrine of Roman law that there can be no property in 
anything without occupation. And while the vagrant waters of the ocean 
can not be subjected and occupied, the sponge beds and pearl reefs can be, 
even as the hills and the mountains. 
It is not difficult to find opinions and analogies among the authorities 
tending to the view that international law would extend protection to enter- 
prises under state authority for cultivating the sea bottom without any ques- 
tion as to whether the strict territorial limits have been exceeded. Even as a 
nation, by building a light-house upon the bed of a rock or upon piles driven 
into the bed of the sea, acquires territorial jurisdiction over the space thus 
occupied, so it would seem that a portion of the bed of the sea might be exploited 
and occupied in like manner, and that ordinary territorial law would apply to it. 
