192 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



8. CONCLUSION. 



To the reader who would demand an exact economic equivalent for the labor and 

 money here expended, our answer must be a very general one. Science and industry 

 move together. Industry is helpless without the aid of science, and the greatest indus- 

 trial progress is at present being made by those countries which realize this fact most 

 fully. But science can never prosper if forced to play the role of a servant. She must 

 be free to pursue her own ends without being halted at every step by the challenge: 

 Cui bono? The attempt to restrict our scientific experts to problems of obvious eco- 

 nomic importance would be equivalent to depriving ourselves of their services altogether. 

 It is to-day accepted as a commonplace that all the great discoveries of a practical 

 nature have rested ultimately upon principles first brought to light by the seeker after 

 truth. The enlightened manufacturer of Germany looks upon a well-paid scientific 

 investigator as a good invesment. As a result of this policy the rest of the world is 

 looking on uneasily, while its own industries pass into the hands of this farsighted 

 competitor. Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries, the great fishing nations 

 of Europe, have long been leaders in the scientific investigation of the sea. And in 

 recent years we have witnessed the formation of an international council, representing 

 all of those nations ha\'ing an immediate interest in the fisheries of the North Sea, and 

 organized for the study of hydrographic and biological problems as well as of purely 

 economic ones. To Americans there should be no novelty in all this. Let us keep in 

 mind the oft-quoted words of the distinguished founder of our Fish Commission in 

 outlining the policy adopted by him ; 



As the history of the fishes themselves would not be complete without a thorough knowledge of 

 their associates in the sea, especially such as prey upon them or in turn constitute their food, it was 

 considered necessary to prosecute searching inquiries on these points, especially as one supposed cause 

 of the diminution of the fishes was the alleged decrease or displacement of the objects upon which they 

 subsist. 



Furthermore, it was thought likely that peculiarities in the temperature of the water at different 

 depths, its chemical constitution, the percentage of carbonic-acid gas and of ordinary air, its currents, 

 etc., might all bear an important part in tlie general sum of influences upon the fisheries; and the 

 inquiry, therefore, ultimately resolved itself into an investigation of the chemical and physical char- 

 acter of the water, and of the natural history of its inhabitants, whether animal or vegetable. It was 

 considered expedient to omit nothing, however trivial or obscure, that might tend to throw light upon 

 the subject of inquiry, especially as without such exhaustive investigation it would be impossible to 

 determine what were the agencies which exercised the predominant influences upon the economy of 

 the fisheries. 



So that if we can not, from our present labors, offer any suggestions of direct value 

 to the practical fisherman, we trust that we have at least added to the intelligent under- 

 standing of the marine life of our coast. And we likewise trust that the idtimate benefit 

 to the practical fisherman will be as great as that to the man of science. 



