518 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [2] 
to visit the coast of Italy and ascertain under what conditions experi- 
nents might be made, on a large scale, in the way of propagating ma- 
rine animals. 
The result of Coste’s visit to Italy was his interesting work on Comac- 
chio. Comacchio, a colony of fishermen located in the midst of the la- 
goons of the Adriatic, has solved the interesting problem of cultivating 
the domai of the sea, “the fruits of which,” says Coste, ‘are gathered, 
ripened, and multiplied in vast fish-ponds, and somewhat later har- 
vested with as much profit and less labor than those of the soil.” 
Does not this way of characterizing the industry of Comacchio apply 
in almost every particular to the ponds of the Arcachon Basin? Whilst, 
therefore, the famous scientist envied Italy on account of her piscicult- 
ural industry, this very industry flourished in our own country, in the 
Arcachon fish-ponds, where, on a smaller scale, it is true, and under 
other, but no less favorable conditions, the fruits of the sea ripen and 
are harvested with as much profit and less labor than those of the soil. 
It would be difficult to mark the exact time when these ponds were 
constructed, or to trace to any one man the invention of this ingenious 
system of cultivating the sea. The Marquis de Cirac was the first per- 
son who conceived the idea of utilizing the vast alluvial grounds of 
his domain. He inclosed them with dikes, and thus constructed salt 
marshes. The salters soon noticed that with the water destined to sup- 
ply their salt-pits there came young fish; they saw them grow and 
flourish. The fisheries, at first only carried on to supply the wants of 
the family, soon became a business which extended from the hamlet to 
the city. The manufacture of salt was abandoned for the new industry, 
and people studied how to improve the apparatus which was to assure 
jts success. Every year some progress was made, and the fish-ponds 
have now arrived at that state which, without being the height of per- 
fection that-might be attained, nevertheless justifies us in designating 
their arrangement as a model to all who desire to devote themselves to 
marine pisciculture. And it is of this arrangement that we now intend 
to give a brief description. 
The fish-ponds were, as we have already re marked, originally salt 
marshes. They may still be recognized by their general appearance, 
there being vast sheets of water, separated from each other by pieces 
of ground equally large and devoted to agriculture. These last-men- 
tioned pieces of ground are called ‘‘bosses” (protuberances), and have 
been formed by soil taken from the diggings which constitute the deeper 
portions and have been assigned to the fish. By means of sluices con- 
structed in convenient places in the dikes which separate the fish-ponds 
from the basin of Arcachon, the water in the ponds is renewed, and 
the young fish, when still in the condition of small fry, are introduced 
into the ponds. These sluices are generally constructed of wood, and 
consist of four principal parts, viz: In the middle the bridge, which is 
placed at the higher part of the dike, and which serves as a passage- 
