[3] THE STATUS OF THE FISH COMMISSION. 1141 



vestiftations on the subject (of the diminutiou of valuable fishes) with 

 the view of ascertaiuiug whether any and what diminution in the 

 luiniber of tlie food-fishes of the coast and the lakes of the United States 

 has taken place ; and, if so, to what causes the same is due ; and also 

 whether any and whatiirotection, prohibitory or precautionary measures 

 should be ad(jpted in the premises, and to report upon the same to Con- 

 gress." 



The resolution establLsbing the office of Commissioner of Fisheries re- 

 quired that the person to be appointed should be a civil officer of the 

 Government, of proved scientific and practical acquaintance with the 

 fishes of the coast, to serve without additional salary. The choice was 

 thus practically hmited to a single man, for whom, in fact, the office had 

 been created. Professor Baird, then Assistant Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, was appointed and entered at once upon his duties. 



I think I may say without fear of challenge that very much of the 

 improvement in the condition of our fisheries has been due to the wise 

 and energetic management of our Commissioner. Himself an eminent 

 man of science, for forty years in the front; rank of biological investiga- 

 tion, the author of several hundred scientific memoirs, no one could 

 realize more thoroughly the importance of a scientific foundation for the 

 proposed woik.* 



His position as the head of that most influential scientific organiza- 

 tion, the Smithsonian Institution, given by an Englishman to the United 

 States " for the increase and diffusion of useful knowledge among men," 

 enabled him to secure at once the aid of a body of trained specialists. 



Pure and applied science have labored together always in the service 

 of the Fish Couimission, their representatives working side by side in 

 the same laboratories; indeed, much of the best work both in the inves- 

 tigation of the fisheries and in the artificial culture of fishes has been 

 performed by men eminent as zoologists. 



The principal activity of the Commissioner, however, has been directed 

 to the wholesale replenishment of our depleted waters. The success 

 of fish culture is well recognized in the United States, but it was espe- 

 cially gratifying to. its advocates that in 1880 the grand prize of the In- 

 ternational Fisheries Exhibition at Berlin was awarded to Professor 

 Baird as " the first fish-culturist in the world." 



3. THE SCOPE OF ITS WORK. 



The work of the Commission is naturally divided into three sections : 

 1. The systematic investigation of the waters of the United States 

 and the biological and physical problems which they present. The sci- 

 entific studies of the Commission are based upon a liberal and philo- 



*S«^e thi' recently published "Biblography of tlie writiugs of Speucer Fullertou 

 Baird" (Bulletin 20, United States National Museum), in whicli are enumerated the 

 scientific papers of this investigator, not a small nuriiber of which relate directly to 

 ^shery ecoiiomy. 



