8o 



portion is preserved for human food ; and,, above all things, 

 to study the grandest specimen of piscatorial topography 

 ever exhibited, in the official fishery map of the United 

 States, which I hope will not leave this country until it has 

 stajnped its merits indelibly upon our department. 



I now come to the consideration of the most practical 

 matter, not only connected with the subject of this paper, 

 but with the outcome of this great international ex- 

 change of experience and ideas on fish supply, viz., the 

 possible result of the utilization of our inland waters, of 

 course confining my statistics to Ireland, while generalizing 

 the knowledge I have acquired in this building on the 

 point. 



My dtbut in connection with these Conferences took 

 place at the reading of a paper on coarse fish by Mr. Marston, 

 which, however, was principally confined to the production 

 in artificial waters. The discussion on that paper, however, 

 led me to put to myself the query how many thousand 

 acres of small lakes exist in Ireland, all more or less con- 

 taining fish bad and good, though mostly the former, which, 

 now contributing nothing to the food supply of this great 

 country, could with small expenditure be made to add a 

 defined annual tonnage to the present amount of a most 

 wholesome, economical, and appetizing nutriment for the 

 poor? No sooner struck with the importance of the 

 demonstration than I hastened to acquire statistical infor- 

 mation. I knew that by an application to the Ordnance 

 Survey Department in Phoenix Park the exact return of 

 the area of each lake in Ireland could be supplied me from 

 the six-inch map, and so the application was made, but 

 time would not allow for the calculation, so I was obliged to 

 fall back upon that wondrous compilation, Thorn's Directory, 

 and there I found the area of inland waters in each county 



