FISHERIES OF AMERICA 167 



A few days later vessels arriving at the ports of 

 Philadelphia, New York, and Boston reported 

 passing through miles of dead or dying tile-fish. 

 Investigation showed that the area covered 

 by these dead fish was between 5000 and 7000 

 square miles, and that the number exceeded 

 1,000,000,000. 



From 1882 until 1915 not a trace of tile-fish was 

 found anywhere in the world, although another genus 

 of -the family and a couple of species of little or 

 no value were discovered. Scientific men became 

 convinced that the valuable food fish had become 

 suddenly exterminated by some sudden submarine 

 disturbance, or by some poisonous gas, or by a sudden 

 fatal malady. 



Early in the season of 1915, while the Government 

 was engaged in marine work off Nantucket, without 

 any warning, tile -fish were caught. The location 

 was on the old grounds in almost the same spot 

 where Captain Kirby made his first catch in 1879. 

 A hurried investigation showed that the fish were 

 present in vast abundance. Later, not only were the 

 other old grounds found to be occupied, but new ones 

 were located along the New Jersey coast and north of 

 Nantucket. Boats were immediately chartered, and 

 in a few weeks the Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 

 and Baltimore markets were well supplied, and since 

 then without interruption the tile-fish have been 

 held in high popular favour. It was evident that all 

 the tile-fish had not been exterminated by the 

 mysterious catastrophe in 1882, and that whatever 

 the disaster was, it was of such a nature as to drive 



