XXX EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Survey or the Navy Department, to either of which branches of the 

 service it can be transferred when no longer needed for the Fish Com- 

 mission. The length of keel proposed is about 200 feet. Under the law 

 of Congress she would be furnished by the Navy Department with offi- 

 cers and crew, otherwise not employed, so that the expense to the 

 country will be little beyond thi\t of construction, the vessel, of course, 

 being available either in an emergency or permanently for the service 

 of the Government iu any Department other than that for which espe- 

 cially constructed. Provided with sails, such a vessel will be able to 

 dispense with a large expenditure of coal. There is atpreseut nothing 

 of the kind belonging to the United States service, either in the Navy 

 or Coast Survey, and her construction would furnish an imi^ortant ad- 

 dition to the naval resources of the United States. 



The method of research, in the interest of the fisheries, upon the 

 proposed steamer, will consist in the use of the most approved ap- 

 paratus for determinations of temperature, depths, and currents, and 

 for collecting objects from the sea-bottom, Irom the surface, and for the 

 depths midway; also in securing samples of the water at the different 

 depths, for chemical and microscopical investigation. The tempera- 

 ture investigations will be of very great importance, as the distribution 

 and migrations of fish are influenced by the variation of temperature in 

 the waters inhabited by them. 



An important problem for solution on such a vessel is the determin- 

 ation of the reasons why the menhaden, within the last few years, have 

 almost entirely abandoned the coast of Maine, and indeed the whole 

 region to the north of Cape Cod. Upon this fishery in the Gulf of 

 Maine depends the livelihood of some two thousand men, and the suc- 

 cess of an investment of between one and two million dollars. If this 

 change in the habit of the fish is likely to be permanent, the sooner the 

 fact is ascertained the better, that the industry may be transferred to 

 some other quarter, since now its prosecution is attended with no other 

 result than that of serious loss to those who are concerned in it. There 

 is no question that the cause is a physical one and capable of deter- 

 mination. 



A similar problem is that relating to the disappearance of mackerel 

 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It was for the privilege of participat- 

 ing in this fishery that the United States recently paid the onerous 

 Halifax award. If we can determine the probabiUty of a continued 

 absence of fish from the Gulf before the next convention to consider 

 the value of the Canadian fisheries to the United States, it will greatly 

 simplify the impending negotiations. 



Many other similar questions may be solved by the results of a 

 thorough scientific inquiry, and it is not impossible that we may hope 

 to establish general principles by which the fishermen each year may 

 know at what points to meet the incoming schools of mackerel and 

 menhaden, and save weeks of fruitless search for them. 



