AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1677 



abont 40 or 45, which can be attained very readily by means of this dry-air appa- 

 ratus. I had an instance of that in the case of a refrigerator filled with peaches, grapes, 

 salmon, a leg of mutton, and some beefsteaks, with a great variety of other substances. 

 At the i-ncl of four months in midsummer, in the Agricultural building, these were in a 

 perfectly sound and prepossessing condition. No oue would have hesitated one moment 

 to eat the beefsteaks, and one might be very glad of the chance, at times, to have them 

 cooked. This refrigerator had been nsed between San Francisco and New York, and 

 between Chicago and New York, where the trip has occupied a week or ten days, and 

 they are now nsed on a very large scale, tons upon tons of grapes and pears twin? sent 

 from San Francisco by this means. I had a cargo of fish-eggs brought from California 

 to Chicago in a perfect condition. Another method is the hard-frozen process. You 

 nse a freezing mixture of salt and ice powdered tine, this mixture producing a temper- 

 ature of 20 above zero, which can be kept up just as long as the occasion requires, by 

 keeping up the supply of ice and salt. 



Q. How big is the refrigerator? A. There is no limit to the size that may be used. 

 They are made of enormous size for the purpose of preserving salmon, and in New York 

 they keep all kinds offish. 



Q. Now, to come to a practical question, is this a mere matter of theory or of possi- 

 ble use. For instance, could this method be adapted to the preservation of bait for 

 three or four months, if necessary f A. The only question, of course, is as to the extent. 

 There is no question at all that bait of any kind can be kept indefinitely by that pro- 

 cess. I do not tbink there would be the slightest difficulty in building a refrigerator 

 on any ordinary fishing-vessel, cod or halibut, or other fishing-vessel, that should keep 

 with perfect ease all the bait necessary for a long voyage. I have made some inquiries 

 as to the amount of ice, and I am informed by Mr. Black ford, of New York, who is one 

 of the largest operators of this mode, that to keep a room ten feet each way, or a thou- 

 sand cubic feet, at a temperature of '20 above zero, would require abont two thousand 

 pounds of ice and two bushels of salt per week. With that be thinks it could be done 

 without any difficulty. Well, an ordinary vessel would require about seventy-five 

 barrels of bait, an ordinary trawling-vessel. That would occupy a bulk something less 

 than six hundred feet, so that probably four and a half tons of ice a month would keep 

 that fish. Aud it must be remembered that his estimate was for keeping fish in mid- 

 summer in New York. The fishing-vessels would require a smaller expenditure of ice, 

 as these vessels would be surrounded by a colder temperature. A stock of ten to 

 twenty tons would, in all probability, be amply sufficient both to replace toe waste by 

 luelting and to preserve the bait. 



Q. Have yon any doubt that some method like that will be pnt into immediate and 

 successful use, if there is sufficient call for it f A. I have no doubt the experiment 

 will be tried within a twelvemonth. Another method of preserving is by drying. 

 Squid, for instance, and clams, and a great many other kinds of bait can be dried 

 without using any appreciable chemical, and can be readily softened in water. I 

 noticed lately in a Newfoundland paper a paragraph recommending that in view of 

 the fact that the squid are found there for a limited period of time, the people should 

 go into the industry of drying squid for bait, so that it would always be available for 

 the purpose of cod-fishing. I think the suggestion is an excellent one, and I have no 

 doubt it will be carried out. 



'Q. Now, what is the supply of bait for codfish on the American coast T A. Well, as 

 the codfish eats everything, there is a pretty abundant stock to call upon. Of course, 

 the bait-fish are abundant, the menhaden and herring. The only bait-fish that is not 

 found is the caplin. The herring is very abundant on the American coast, and the ale- 

 wives enormously abundant. Squid are very abundant of two or three species, and, 

 of course, clams of various kinds. Then we have one shell-fish that we possess. It is 

 never used here, although it is very abundant, but it is almost exclusively the bait for 

 trawling on the coast of Great Britain. This shell is known as the whelp or winkle. 



Q. From all you have learned, have you any doubt that, supposing the fishermen of 

 the United States were precluded from using any bait except what could be got upon 

 their own coast, they could obtain a sufficient supply there f A. Well, unless the 

 American fishery should be expanded to very enormous limits, far in excess of what 

 it is now, I can't see that there would be any difficulty. 



That is, of course, not very material, because it only goes to the 

 point that we are uot dependent upon catching bait within three miles 

 of the British coast, anywhere. We have ways of using salt bait, 

 and the use of all these scientific methods of preserving bait, which 

 will, no doubt, be resorted to and experimented upon, and we may be 

 quite certain that they will, in skillful hands, succeed. Nothing further 

 upon that point need be considered by your honors. 



I now call your attention to mackerel. It is a word that we have 

 heard before. It is a word that we have become familiar with, and one 



