870 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [46] 
service; which vessel, during the spawning season, should be subject to 
my orders, so that I may visit all the centers of these great phenomena 
of natural reproduction, where science promises to industry precious 
revelations. 
Captain Isidore Le Roy, known to the government by his studies upon 
the fisheries, a pilot experienced in the waters which are to be the scene 
of our work, well qualified in mechanical arts, and officially recommended 
for the surveillance of the first and second naval districts, could render 
me much aid if he were invested with the command of this vessel, hereto- 
fore mentioned as necessary to the execution of our plans; and in case 
Your Majesty sees fit to appoint him my coadjutor, he should at once 
report at the College of France, there to be instructed, under my direc- 
tion, in all that pertains to the cultivation of marine products. 
Among the measures to be taken for the accomplishment of. this 
object, there are, sire, some which experience has already demonstrated 
to be efficacious, and which, by their immediate application, will pro- 
duce certain results. But, besides these known facts, there are mys- 
teries which persevering study alone can reveal, and which should be 
made the object of serious investigation. It will then be necessary to 
open along our shores vast laboratories, where scientific experiments 
may be performed, which will furnish new means for the extension of 
empire of industry. The saline lakes of Southern France, the bay's of 
the ocean, those of Algeria, of Corsica, &c., offer the best opportunities 
for organizing great districts to be gradually transformed at Your Maj- 
esty’s desire into supply centers for the seeding and cultivation of the sea. 
The different edible species admitted by turns into those zoological 
gardens, so to speak, would be, like the animals in our stalls or in our 
parks, under the observant eye of those charged with the duty of study- 
ing their laws of propagation and of development, investigators placed 
there, as a branch of my laboratory of the College of France. It will 
then be necessary to enlarge the study rooms and increase the personnel 
and endowment. <A skilled artist with his brushes will give a represent- 
ation of each curious discovery which shall be made in this living museum, 
and thus prepare plates for one of the most important publications with 
which the annals of natural history will ever be enriched. 
The unexpected phenomena which I witnessed at Concarnean, in the 
small ponds of Pilot Guillou, left no doubt in my mind as to the great 
serviceability of an establishment which will place in the hands of the 
government the necessary means for executing a work of public utility. 
In the age when, by a sovereign application of the laws of physics, 
an invisible flame carries thought through conducting wires with which 
the genius of man has encircled the earth, physiology will exercise its 
empire over organic nature by an application of the laws of life. 
I cannot conclude this report, sire, without expressing my thanks to 
Admiral La Place, prefét maritime at Brest, for the energetic assistance 
which he gave to our enterprise, by confiding its rapid execution to the 
