1020 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



[2] 



The present article is therefore subdivided into two parts. In the 

 first part I shall try to present the results of all investigations made 

 up to the present time on the chemical composition of the flesh of fish. 

 In the second part I intend as far as possible to show, with the aid of 

 certain statistical data, what importance fish has as a food-substance 

 in our domestic economy. 



I.— RESULTS OF INVESTIGATIONS. 



Investigations on the chemical composition of the flesh of fish can 

 properly be said to have begun only with the year 1854. Before this 

 date only two such analyses were made, and they were very incomplete, 

 so that it is impossible to obtain from their results a correct idea of the 

 composition of the flesh of fish.* 



Last year Dr. Popof analyzed the flesh of some Russian fishes.! 

 Being evidently unacquainted with the work of Mr. Almeu, to be re- 

 ferred to hereafter, he proceeded in his analyses in the same manner 

 as did Payen and Kouig. His results are as follows : 



In the spring of the present year I made analyses of thirty species of 

 fishes and fish products from Russian waters.f I determined in my 

 analyses all the substances enumerated in the table, closely following 

 the directions given by Hoppe-Seyler in his hand-book of physiological 

 chemical analysis. Besides the substances indicated in the table, I 

 also determined the amount of common salt in salt fish, and in certain 

 (salted and preserved) fishes the amounts of phosphoric acid and iron. 



*Theauthor here recapitulates the aualysis of fish reported previous To the year 

 1883, when the following analyses by hynself were performed. It is deemed unnec- 

 essary to repeat his recapitulations here, the more so as the same data with others 

 are to be included in a detailed discussion of the subject by Prof. W. O. Atwater in 

 connection with a report of his to be published by the Commission. A series of 

 analyses by Popbf are, however, included, as they have not become current in the 

 literature of the subject. — EDITOR. 



t Determination of the proportion of nutritive matter contained in the most com- 

 mon species of tish. Dissertation for the degree of doctor of medicine. St. Peters 

 burg, 1882; in Russian. [The analyses arc stated by Professor Kostytscheff to have 

 been made in the usual way. from which it is to lie inferred that the protein was 

 estimated by multiplying the nitrogen by 6.25. — Editor.] 



tOwing to an offer made by Mr. N. M. Solsky, director of the Museum of Rural 

 Economy, and late general commissioner to the international Exhibition of Fisheries 

 at London. 



