168 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [78] 



* glorious hauls.' He is now in Provincetowu with Ms seine catcliiug 

 mackerel, and recently took GO barrels at one ' shoot.' This new mode of 

 fishing bids fair to create an entire revolution in the mackerel and shad 

 fisheries. Our correspondent says that the Vineyard Sound will soon 

 become a great fishing ground. It is well known that all the shad, 

 bass, mackerel, etc., which are found in Block Island Channel early in 

 the spring pass through the sound, and it is now ascertained that with 

 proper seines they may be caught in great abundance. With a purse- 

 seine, when mackerel are schooling or shoaling, the fishermen may run 

 around them and inclose one Imndrecl harrels. They will not bite at 

 bobs as in years past, but Cape Cod ingenuity has devised something 

 to out-general them." 



The purse-seine was undoubtedly a development and extension of the 

 idea of the drag-seine supplemented by that of the gill-net used at sea 

 in sweeping around schools of fish. 



The first seine used north of Cape Cod was that carried by Oapt. 

 Nathaniel Adams, of Gloucester, in the schooner " Splendid," in the 

 year 1850. Capt. Nathaniel Watson, of the "Raphael," began using 

 one the same year. According to Mr. Luther Maddox, the earliest ex- 

 periments were at Chelsea Beach. It is claimed by some that Gorham 

 Babson, of Gloucester, had one in use as early as 1847. 



The early seines were about 200 yards in length, 22 fathoms in depth, 

 and of 2^-inch mesh, the bunts being about 250 meshes square. The 

 twine was much heavier than that used in the i^resent seine; the whole 

 net weighed 600 or 700 pounds. The seine in its present form did not 

 come into general use until about 18G0. 



The rapidity with which this expensive form of apparatus has come 

 to be generally em])loyed in our fisheries seems almost marvelous. At 

 the present time the total number of these nets used in the mackerel 

 fishery is not far from 400, valued at 100,000 dollars ; in the menhaden 

 fishery 3G6, valued at 138,400 dollars. The total value of the purse- 

 seines with the value added of the seine-boats, which really are parts of 

 the same apparatus, cannot be less than 440,000 dollars. 



Capt. W. H. Oakes states that in early days a certain kind of net 

 was used in catching menhaden which reached to the bottom in shallow 

 water and which was pursed by means of ropes. Capt. George Blatch- 

 ford used to go for menhaden in an old pinkie, and used one of these 

 nets. 



Captain Oakes is of the opinion that Capt. William Eatcliff, of Eocky 

 Neck, Gloucester, was the first man who caught mackerel in deep water 

 off-shore. He used some kind of a purse-seine, and with it in two hauls 

 caught about 90 barrels of mackerel off Monhegan in 90 fathoms of 

 water. Capt. George Merchant, jr., of Gloucester, writes as follows re- 

 garding the early attempts to seine mackerel in deep water. He says : 

 "Previous to 1862 the only mackerel caught in deep water, in seines, 

 were taken with the schools of pogies. From one to ten or twelve 



