92 



in examining and illustrating the seal and other fisheries in 

 connection with the last general census ; for all of which it 

 has earned the confidence and commendation of the country. 

 Why should not a similar service be performed by it in co- 

 operation with the States bordering the Great Lakes in 

 making an exhaustive survey and examination of the fisheries 

 from Duluth to the St. Lawrence river? "The reward of 

 having wrought well is to have more work to do." If the 

 Commission has not the equipment in steamers, the work 

 already in hand probably requiring them all, why not borrow 

 one or more of the revenue cutters that are lounging up 

 and down the lakes? I may be doing that branch of the 

 service an injustice, but I never have heard within ten years of 

 those vessels doing anything more useful than cruise on a sort 

 of dress-parade between Buffalo and Chicago. 



If a revenue cutter could not be spared, then why not bor- 

 row from the Navy Department a despatch-boat, or some of 

 the many steamers not suitable for modern naval warfare, and 

 have her fitted out for this service. To do what ? To be 

 manned with the necessary crew, under command of an officer 

 not above such service, placed under the direction of the 

 United States Fish Commission, supplied by him with one or 

 more naturalists, and one or more men competent to study 

 and report upon the conditions, capacities and needs of the 

 industrial fisheries, supplied with drags, sounding appliances, 

 proper thermometers, duplicate charts of the lakes, and com- 

 plete fishing apparatus. Upon the charts could be marked 

 spawning-beds, seining grounds, the lines of inshore and out- 

 side fishing, abandoned fishing grounds, the lines where certain 

 kinds of fish are most plentiful or scarce, the pound-net fishing 

 stations and the like. With such an equipment it would be 

 practicable to make a complete survey of the fishing, feeding 

 and spawning grounds of the great lakes ; exhaustive scientific 

 observations and collections of the fauna; a census of the fish- 

 ing industry, its methods, its product, its habits ; in fact, a 

 history that would, by its manifold and exact observations of 

 the present condition and requirements of the industry and 

 its possibilities, lead conclusively to a knowledge of the causes 



