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Biology in America 



present. Expeditions by several ships of the U. S. Navy 

 and Coast Survey during the latter half of the last century 

 have made valuable additions to our knowledge of the sea, 

 among which may be mentioned the cruises of the ' ' Blake ' ' 

 in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico from 1877 to 

 1880 under the direction of the late Alexander Agassiz,- of 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, 

 and son of the great Swiss-American naturalist. 



The establishment of the U. S. Fish Commission in 1871 

 early led to marine expeditions conducted under its auspices, 



THE " ALBATROSS" OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 

 The pioneer American vessel engaged in oceanography. She was in 

 charge of Alexander Agassiz during his cruises on the Pacific and has 

 added much to our knowledge of the fisheries of the Pacific Coast, espe- 

 cially Alaska. After Smith, in Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries 

 for 1908. 



although partly financed by private money. The Commission 

 was at first dependent upon vessels loaned to it by the U. S. 

 Revenue Cutter Service, the Navy, and the Coast Survey, 

 but in 1880 it acquired for its own use the steamer "Fish 

 Hawk, ' ' which has since then been used on the Atlantic coast, 

 partly for scientific investigations and partly as a floating 

 fish hatchery; and two years later the "Albatross," which 

 has been mainly employed in scientific and practical investi- 

 gations on the Pacific Ocean, but during the recent war was 

 in naval service on the Atlantic, and is at present temporarily 

 out of commission at Baltimore. 

 Much of the hazard of the fisherman's trade is due to the 



