108 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



tlieii would average about one dollar per barrel, I should think. The 

 price has been constantly and gradually increasing ever since; the 

 average ]irice last year was aboi*t two dollars a barrel ; they have 

 brought $i 50 per barrel. The price has been increased in consequence 

 of increased demand and scarcity of fish, together with the facility of 

 carrying them to market. I have seen seventy vessels taking in fish 

 and waiting their turn, twelve loading at one time, at Seconnet Point." 

 To the 2.jth interrogatory, he says, " I should think that about three thou- 

 sand barrels of scup were carried to Providence. I should say not over 

 one-fifth of the takings were used in the State for food, for the last three 

 years." "Scup,'- he sa.ys, in answer to interrogatory 31, "were caught 

 above Stone Bridge in 1825 and afterward. In the year 1823, or there- 

 abouts, they were caught at Church's Cove. That is about the first 

 seining that was done about Seconnet Point. From 1825 to 184:5 any 

 quantity of scup were caught ; after that they did not so many come up 

 tlie river as formerly." 



Mr. Tallman is of opinion that if these methods of taking fish were 

 disused, the market would not be better or fish more plenty, because 

 the fish the trappers take would not have stopped in the bay ; all the 

 impurities of the waters at Fall River, Providence, «&c., deleteriously 

 afiect the fish. 



These two deponents may be said to fairly represent the opinions and 

 convictions of the hook-and line men on the one hand and of the trap- 

 pi sts on the other. It will not escape observation that they agree on 

 two important points : first, that there has been a gradual diminution 

 of the number of fish entering the bay or river; secondly, that fish are 

 not as cheaj) as formerly. They diifer as to the cause of the decrease, 

 but it must be admitted as a tact that contemporaneous with the intro- 

 duction of traps was a decrease of fish. In this connection we may use 

 the language of Professor Greene in his speech before the general 

 assembly last winter : " Is it not an accepted principle of philosophical 

 investigation that where two facts follow each other in this close order 

 of sequence, they bear to each other the relation of cause and effect ? 

 Does the severest logic demand any other test than that the cause 

 should be adequate, the etfect evident ? Is it not to reasoning like this 

 that we are indebted for all that we know of the laws of animal and 

 vegetable life "l What is theory but the generalization of i^henomena, 

 and what do we require of these phenomena but that they should bear 

 the most rigorous investigation 1 That investigation, in questions like 

 this, is experiment. If the theory be just, the experiments will confirm 

 it. If the theory be false, the experiments will reveal the falsehoods. 

 And here," he continued, " I might rest my argument, for all that we ask 

 is, that this question, so important to every citizen of Ehode Island, 

 should be brought to the test of experiment." 



This report had reached this point, when the chairman received a 

 copy of the Yarmouth Register of May 27, in which there is a speech 

 made by Mr. Atwood, of the Massachusetts senate, on the 19th of April 

 last, in relation to the petitions for the prohibition of net and seine 

 fishing on the coast of that State. Mr. Atwood was opposed to any 

 prohibitory legislation, because he had not any apprehension that the 

 fisheries could be exhausted ; that fish were migratory, or rather not 

 permanently local; they sometimes have a locality, and, after the lapse 

 of years, reappear; that therefore the disappearance of fish of any kind 

 is not proof of their exhaustion, but merely of absence. Mr. Atwood 

 states, "The scup that has been so abundant for many years south of 

 Cape Cod extends to Florida, and is caught in great numbers along the 

 coast. It finds a ready sale in New York, and other markets, but in 



