94 PACIFIC COD FISHERIES. 
ican markets, an almost unlimited supply of raw product, and dur- 
ing the last two seasons the ability to import from the eastern Prov- 
inces of Canada large supplies free of all duty, has had an immense 
advantage over its younger and weaker brother. On this coast it 
has not been a question of being able to secure cargoes, but has been 
one of finding a market for the catch; a vastly greater catch could 
be made were a market available for it. 
The fact of the presence of cod in Alaskan waters has long been 
known. In the speech of Hon. Charles Sumner,’ on the cession of 
Russian America to the United States, and which had such a power- 
ful effect in favor of the treaty of cession then pending, is an ab- 
stract of the references made by early navigators and visitors in 
Alaska to its fishes. The first mention was made by a Russian 
navigator in 1765, who reported “ cod, perch, pilchards, smelts,” as 
being found around the Fox Islands. Other navigators and ex- 
plorers who reported the presence of cod were Cook (1786), Port- 
lock (1787), Meares, Billings (1792), Langsdorf (1804), Sutke, and 
Sir George Simpson (1841), all of whom speak of it as being a very 
common fish. But little use was made of it, however, owing to the 
abundance of salmon. 
It is reported that in 1866 two or three small schooners fitted out 
at Victoria, British Columbia, and fished with fair success on the 
grounds immediately north of the Nass River. It is a question 
whether this fish was the true cod or one of the several unrelated 
species which bear the common name of cod. 
Capt. Matthew Turner seems to have been the pioneer in the dis- 
covery of the commercial possibilities of the great cod banks of the 
Pacific Ocean. Mr. W. A. Wilcox, late field agent of the now United 
States Bureau of Fisheries, received from the late Capt. Turner the 
following facts in connection with his discovery of various banks 
and his exploitation of same: ? 
In 1857 Capt. Matthew Turner, master of the brig Timandra, 120 tons, sailed 
from San Francisco with an assorted cargo for Nicolaevsk on the Amoor River. 
He was detained, however, for three weeks at Castor Bay, at the head of 
the Gulf of Tartary, because the Amoor River was full of ice when he 
reached the Asiatic coast. While the vessel lay there waiting, anchored in 3 
fathoms of water, the crew began fishing over the rail with hand lines simply 
as a pastime. They were surprised to find plenty of cod, averaging about 2 
feet in length. Capt. Turner had not previously seen codfish, but some of his 
crew were familiar with the species, and he, knowing their market value at 
San Francisco, appreciated the importance of the discovery and became inter- 
ested in the fishing. Two years later Capt. Turner made another trip to the 
@ Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the cession of Russian America 
to the United States, 48 p. Washington, 1867. 
> Report on the fisheries of the Pacific coast of the United States, by J. W. Collins. 
Report of United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1888, p. 92, 93. 
Washington, 1892. 
