American I'islicrics Society. 125 



piled on like cord-wood, and you coidd buy them for from 50 

 cents to a dollar apiece. The Indians caug^ht them bv runninpf 

 a line between two stakes, attaching to this line a number of 

 smaller lines reachintj;- to the bottom and provided with hooks, 

 and the sturgeon, while rolling- on the bottom, were cauglit on 

 these hooks. The Indians sold them about as cheap as you could 

 buy wood. I have seen them sold as low as 50 cents apiece, 

 but to-day they are the most valuable fish we have. 



Mr. Clark : 1 wish to correct a statement that Mr. Stone 

 makes. He says this is the only record of the United States Fish 

 Commission doing anything with the sturgeon. Mr. Ravenel, I 

 think, will recall the experiments that were conducted in the 

 '8o's or early '90's, on the Detroit River, by the United States 

 Fish Commission. The results of the experiments we conducted 

 at that time are on file at the Washington office. Although our 

 success was not marked, we succeeded in getting sturgeon eggs 

 and in hatching the fry. The eggs were taken also from the 

 Detroit River to the Xortliville Hatchery and hatched, and we 

 undertook to raise them, but were not successful. 



Mr. Ravenel: Mr. Clark is, of course, strictly correct in 

 hi< statement. In addition to that, sturgeon eggs were taken 

 and hatched l)y Prof. Jno. A. R} der and Bashford Dean at Dela- 

 ware City, Del. 



Tlie President: That is a salt water fish. 



Mr. Ravenel: All of the work wdth the sturgeon has been 

 on a very small scale. There is no subject in fish culture, ex- 

 cepting the lobster, that we have given more time and thought 

 to in the last few years. The sturgeon fisheries, from being verv 

 important on tl'e Atlantic coast and Great Lakes, have dwindled 

 to practically ncHhing. Two years ago, after a personal investi- 

 gation on the Delaware River, we established a station at Dela- 

 ware City, where about 500 nets are fished over an area of 50 

 square miles. At that time there were several thousand stur- 

 geon cauglit, the eggs of one of which brought $84, to give 

 you an idea of iheir value. We found spawners or spent fish 

 but once or twice in the entire time. I only hope Mr. Stone's pre- 



