8 



of young shad, in case you succeed in finding any ripe live 

 eggs. Please let me know it" you have established your 

 hatching camp yet, at what point, and with what success? 

 L would like to run on and make you a visit, and arrange for 

 the distribution of some young shad in our Eastern Rivers, 

 easily reached from your camp. 



I am very respectfully^ ttc, T. B. Fergusox, 



Commissioner of Fisheries, .State of Maryland. 



To which the iollowing reply was received : 



Point Pleasant, Pa., 



June 2Wi, 1874. 

 My Dear Sir : — Your's received. We are doing well here, 

 though the w^eather is very hot, 97i° at 2 o'clock P. M., to- 

 day. Can give you, I think, a tine lot of shad next week. 

 Jiave taken in three days two hundred thousand spawn. ] 

 shall be absent on evening of July 2nd, and until July Gth, 

 probably. Can you come up on Monday (July Gth) ? as the 

 sooner the better. I will try to have cans for you, and can 

 send a man, if necesary, with you on your return * * 



Your's, J. H. Slack, M. D., 



Dept. U. S. Commission Fisheries. 

 T. B. Ferguson, 



Commissioner of Fisheries, State of Maryland. 



We therefore proceeded to Point Pleasant, but on reaching 

 the hatching camp on the night of Gth of July, were disap- 

 pointed at finding that Dr. Slack had not returned, having 

 been detained at his home by severe illness, which prove fatal. 

 His untimely death is thus announced in the report of the 

 Xew Jersey Commis.-ioners : "By this event the State has 

 lost a valuable officer, and his colleagues, an able and ardent 

 coadjutor. In the prime of manhood, possessing a highly 

 cultivated intellect, the bent of his intellect led him in the 

 pursuit of Natural Sciences, especially that branch relating 

 to pisciculture. In this lie became distinguished and pre- 

 eminently fitted for the position he held ; when by exposure 

 wbile in charge of a shad hatching camp on the River Dela- 

 Avare, under the auspices of the United States Commissioner 

 of Fisheries, he contracted a pleurisy, which terminated 

 fatally on the twenty-seventh day of August last." 



In the absence of Dr. Slack, the young fish, which were 

 intended for the Marvland Waters, Avere turned into the 



