AQUATIC PRODUCTS IN ARTS AND INDUSTRIES. 



By Charles H. Stevenson. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The diversity and magnitude of tlie industries based on the utiliza- 

 tion and manufacture of aquatic T)roducts are not fully apijreciated. 

 In a previous j)ublication of this Commission « the great variety of 

 fishery products used for food and their methods of ijreparation were 

 discussed. In addition to the numerous items of food articles, the 

 materials employed in the arts and industries compare favorablj^ in 

 variety and interest with similar j^roducts of the land. These may be 

 roughly separated into five classes, viz, (1) oils, fats, and waxes; 

 (2) fertilizers from aquatic jiroducts; (3) skins of aquatic animals 

 and their products of furs and leathers; (4) the hard substances, as 

 shells, scales, bones, ivories, etc., and (5) miscellaneous articles not 

 properly classed with any of the foregoing, as glue, isinglass, seaweeds, 

 sponges, marine salt, etc. The total value of the annual product of 

 these throughout the world roughly approximates $45,000,000 in the 

 condition in which they are first placed on the market, of which the 

 United States contributes $11,000,000. 



Some of the most extensive fisheries of the world have been prose- 

 cuted almost wholly for the purpose of supplying the oil markets. 

 Whale oils were the first of all oils — animal or mineral- — to achieve 

 commercial importance, and for fully a century the whale fishery 

 ranked as one of the principal industries of America. Indeed it was 

 of far greater relative value in the industrial wealth of the country 

 than the petroleum industries are at the present time. The seal fish- 

 eries of Newfoundland, Norway, and other northern countries, which 

 rank among the most daring and venturesome of marine enterprises, 

 are dependent for their prosperity on the oil obtained from the thick 

 blubber underlying the skins of the animals. The taking of men- 

 haden on the Atlantic coast of the United States for conversion into 

 oil and fertilizer gives employment to thousands of men and to several 

 million dollars of capital. And in the various cod tisheries of the 

 world the rendering of the livers into oil for medicinal as well as for 

 technical uses is a source of great profit. In addition to these exten- 

 sive industries there are numerous minor fisheries supported entirely, 

 or to a large extent, by the oil markets. 



a The Preservation of Fishery Products for Food, Bulletin U. S. Fish Commission, 1898. 



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