MANUFACTURES, ETC. 193 



able and certain ; in fact, I consider them the most important 

 acquisition to our Pacific Coast. As the banks of Newfound* 

 land are to the trade of the Atlantic, so will the greater banks 

 of Alaska be to the Pacific inexhaustible in supply of fish 

 that are equal, if not superior, in size acid quality, to those of 

 the Atlantic, and the pursuit thereof developing a race of sea- 

 men yearly decreasing as our steam marine, commercial and 

 naval, is increasing." 



140. Salmon Fishery. The rivers of California and the 

 waters of the ocean near its coast, abound with fistu Trout 

 are caught in the little streams, salmon in the Sacramento 

 and San Joaquin, and the rivers emptying into the ocean north 

 of San Francisco Bay ; and a great variety of fish are caught 

 in the ocean. 



Our fisheries are as yet so limited in extent that few fish 

 are salted, nearly all going while fresh to supply the market 

 of the towns on the coast. Salmon is the only fish salted for 

 export. The species of salmon caught in our waters is called 

 the Quinnat. They are hatched in the rivers, go out to sea 

 when three or four months old, stay there, probably not less 

 than fifteen months, and then return to the river in which they 

 were born, there to spawn. The Quinnat salmon, as found 

 in our waters, averages ten pounds in weight, and sometimes 

 grows to sixty pounds. It enters our rivers in November and 

 remains about four months. Before our rivers were kept in a 

 continual state of muddiness by the gold miners, the salmon 

 ascended every brook in the Sierra Nevada large enough for 

 a fish to swim in ; but now they do not leave the large rivers 

 nor ascend them far. The salmon in clear water offer fine 

 sport to the fisherman with the fly, but in California they are 

 caught only as a matter of business, and always in the gill- 

 net, which has meshes just large enough to let the fish get his 

 head in, and then the twine catches him behind the gills and 

 holds him. The net is not dragged, but is stretched across or 

 partly across the river, and is allowed to drift with the current 

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