4 PACIFIC COAST FISHERIES. 297 
Product of the oyster industry of Puget Sound. 
Mason. Thurston. Total. 
Years. a 
Bushels. Value. | Bushels.| Value. | Bushels.| Value. 
; | 
| 0 Le, Ee eS ee eee 25,000 | $37,500 1, 200 $1, 800 26, 200 $39, 300 
ean cae gains oia a tctaes'a onan tom ae 25, 400 38, 100 1, 280 1, 920 26, 680 40, 020 
DIGS ee - eee cec cede na stene ccaccewcgas 26, 000 39, 000 1, 920 2, 880 27, 920 41, 880 
oie ele ane i sg ciawemeanle noi aiSe 26, 280 82, 850 | 2, 200 2. 750 28, 480 35, 600 
ALASKA. 
GROWTH OF THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 
- Until a few years ago the wonderful fishery resources of Alaska were 
jittle known except to the natives of the country. Attention was called 
to this distant portion of the United States by Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, 
of the United States Fish Commission, in the report of the Commis- 
sion for 1880. This report was extensively copied and was read with 
great interest, and its accounts of the wonderful abundance of salmon 
and other fish were by many received with doubts similar to those 
entertained two hundred and fifty years before regarding the reports 
carried to Europe as to the abundance of fish off the New England 
coast. Time has proved that the statements of Dr. Bean were quite 
moderate and fully reliable. Notwithstanding the great abundance of 
fish in Alaskan waters, the total value of the fish utilized in 1880 by 
others than natives was shown to have been insignificant. 
Soon after attention had been called to Alaska and its resources by 
the United States Fish Commission, many persons engaged in the salmon 
business on the Columbia and other coast rivers gave the subject of 
Alaskan fisheries careful consideration. Although the fish were very 
abundant, the great distance of the grounds and the expense necessary 
to establish a plant there were considered to involve too great a risk to 
warrant the inauguration of fisheries. The first experiment having 
proven a financial success, the doubtful watchers, slowly at first and 
later with more eagerness, followed, until at the present time it will be 
seen that over half of the aggregate pack of salmon in the United 
States and nearly half of the pack of the entire world comes from 
Alaska. 
The large area, and the wide distances between inhabited stations 
of this vast domain, render the gathering of complete general and 
statistical information a matter of much time, difficulty, and expense. 
Fortunately, so far as the fisheries are concerned, the various fishing 
firms in Alaska have their home stations and headquarters at San 
Francisco, or in Washington and Oregon, and can be reached with com- 
parative ease. The instructions to the writer on his last investigation 
of the fisheries of the Pacific Coast in 1892 called for such statistical 
information regarding the Alaskan fisheries as could be procured 
without visiting that Territory. Each of the headquarter offices, as 
previously mentioned, was visited, and through the courtesy of the 
