1fe) SEVENTH REPORT 'OF THE SHELL FISH COMMISSIONERS 
5. To file notices of unpaid taxes in the town clerk’s office of 
the towns respectively opposite which the lots taxed were situated; 
and, 
Finally, the duty was imposed of establishing a boundary line 
in the waters of the sea between Rhode Island and Connecticut. 
Subsequently this duty was greatly increased by extending their 
authority so as to include in their negotiation the unsettled line 
from the Ashaway River, down the Pawcatuck, to Little Narra- 
gansett Bay. 
As soon as the law of 1881 went into effect, the Commissioners 
promptly addressed themselves to its execution. The duties im- 
posed were manifold, important, and novel. All they had to begin 
with was, on the one hand, this untried law, and, on the other, an 
area of 335,000 acres of ground under water, about one hundred 
miles long and from three to ten miles wide. 
What they have accomplished appears in their six successive 
reports to the Legislature, aggregating over two hundred pages. 
These reports show that no officers in the employ of the State 
have had such varied and important duties to discharge as the 
Commissioners have had for the last six years; and they challenge 
the most rigid scrutiny into their acts, confident that it would 
show beyond question that they have discharged those duties with 
honesty, efficiency, and economy. 
To give the briefest abstract of the work accomplished would 
more than double the length of this statement. Hence, your 
attention is invited only to a brief abstract from their first report, 
covering a period of seven months, from May 1, 1881, to January 
1882: 
rt. The Commissioners carefully examined and made a digest 
of the law of 1881 and many other laws touching the subject of 
shell fisheries. 
2. They considered general plans and all the necessary pre- 
liminary details of their work. 
3. After a thorough investigation, they appointed an engineer 
and his assistants, and conferred with them as to their duties, 
their necessary instruments and materials for their engineering 
labors, and took the requisite steps to procure them. 
4. Secured a clerk and assigned to him his duties. 
5. Hired an office, and furnished it with the necessary 
draughtsman’s tables and other furniture, for the Commissioners’ 
headquarters and the work of the engineers. 
I, 
