310 §ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
1 million, but the loss in that area has been more than compensated 
by the great increase in the yield of the Pacific halibut banks, which, 
from relatively small beginnings before the turn of the century, 
reached a high of 69 million pounds in 1915 with unrestricted fishing. 
Today the annual harvest is nearer 50 million pounds under regulation 
which has resulted in a catch per unit of gear 112 percent greater 
than in 1930. 
Among the fisheries of the Western Hemisphere, that of the Pacific 
sardine or pilchard is outstanding. It is the largest in the hemisphere, 
averaging today 1,000 million pounds a year. It accounts for nearly 
25 percent of all fish caught in the United States. 
Of the lowly oyster, the American harvest alone totals 89.8 million 
pounds of oyster meat, equivalent to 160,360 beef cattle in edible flesh. 
The total capitalized value of the United States fishery resources 
alone is $5,855,000,000. The total world production of fish is esti- 
mated at 13 million tons, or 26 thousand million pounds. 
At one time or another surely we all have made the acquaintance 
of cod-liver oil. We know its source, its high medicinal value, and 
are aware that it has long been familiarly called bottled sunlight. 
Whether we believe it or not, modern research in the field of vitamins 
and irradiation of foods has proved that statement to be literally true. 
From the sun to the oil extracted from the cod’s liver is but one short 
step. 
As the sun sets once again at the harvest’s end, it may be a little 
less difficult to understand the utter dependence of the sea’s abundant 
harvest on the sun than was possible at the beginning of this brief 
discourse. 
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
ABgot, C. G. 
1931. Solar radiation. Ohio State Univ. Bull., vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 403-416, 
figs. 1-11. (Also in Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst., 1932, pp. 107-120, 
8 figs., 3 pls., 1933.) 
BicELow, H. B. 
1926. Plankton of the off-shore waters of the Gulf of Maine. Bull. U. 8. 
Bur. Fish., vol. 40, pt. 2, pp. 1-1027, figs. 1-207. (Contains very 
complete bibliography through 1925.) 
CLARKE, GEORGE L. 
1939. The utilization of solar energy by aquatic organisms, in Problems of 
Lake Biology, Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Publ. No. 10, pp. 27-88, figs. 1-9. 
Coxsr, R. E. 
1938. Life in the sea. Sci. Month., vol. 46, April and May, pp. 229-322 and 416- 
432, illustrated. 
HERDMAN, Sir WILLIAM. 
1923. Founders of oceanography and their work. xii+340 pp. London. 
INTERIOR, U. §. DEPARTMENT OF THE. 
1945. Fishery resources of the United States. S. Doc. 51, 79th Cong., Ist 
Sess., iv-+185 pp., illustrated. 
