26 Fish Cultural Association. 
ship. In the ordinary hatchway, at sea, when a storm com- 
mences, the hatchway must be closed, and no matter how hot 
it is, still it must be closed, and you are paid no attention 
to, because the safety of the ship is more important than 
the eggs, and even ‘with it open and the eggs exposed to 
the temperature in October, it would range so high that it 
would be impossible to keep them. 
Mr. Mitner: A shipment of spawn to New Zealand 
was made from California very much better than that Mr. 
Mather describes, in the German ships. The New Zealand 
mail-ships afforded the best facilities for transporting the 
spawn, and before the ships left San Francisco there was an 
ice-house arranged for the purpose of taking in the boxes of 
spawn. The requisite temperature was sustained from San 
Francisco outward, so that the point made by Mr. Stone in 
reference to keeping them cool was possible to be carried 
out. The proposition in the start was that the hatchway 
be taken, and that a floor be made about the lower deck, 
covering the space of the hatchway, and then that a heavy 
layer of straw be placed on a layer of ice, and the box 
placed on that, the ice being packed round precisely as in an 
ice-house; but the company refused to take the straw on 
board, so that the ice had to be placed in a comparatively 
warm hatchway, where it melted away. 
Mr. Matruer: My ice was placed in the ice-room under 
the care of the provision steward. His room is in the ex- 
treme lower part of the ship, away forward. The eggs were 
nearly midships in the open hatch, and I had men go down 
there every day and bring me up ice in large cakes, which I 
would place on top of the eggs and let it drip down 
through. I have given a complete report of the whole busi- 
ness to Professor Baird, and it will undoubtedly be published 
