TENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 125 
isfactory generalization, the paper was confined to a very brief 
statement of some of the more simple and practical results. | 
The research, a brief abstract of some of the more interesting 
practical results of which is given below, has been going on for 
two or three years at Wesleyan University, under the auspices 
of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Fish Com- 
mission, and now includes chemical analysis of fifty-three sam- 
ples of American food fishes. Some forty-one samples have been 
previously analyzed in Europe. An idea of the extent of the 
work may be had from the fact that in the manuscript of the 
report prepared for publication in the next report of the U.S. 
Fish Commission, the figures, by which the main results of the 
analysis are expressed in tabular form, fill some seven or eight 
large folio sheets. 
The samples analyzed were procured in part from fish mar- 
kets in. Middletown, Conn., where the analysis were made, but 
mostly from New York through the courtesy of Mr. E. G. Black- 
ford, Treasurer of the American Fish Cultural Association, to 
whose help, in numerous ways, especial thanks are due. 
MATERIALS OF WHICH FISH ARE COMPOSED. 
Considered from the standpoint of the food value, fish, as we 
buy them in the markets, consist of— 
1. Flesh or edible portion. 
2. Waste—bones, skins, entrails, etc. 
The proportions of waste matter in different kinds of fish and 
in different samples of the same kind in different condition vary 
widely. Thus a sample of flounder contained 68 per cent., of 
waste matter and only 32 per cent. of flesh, while one of halibut 
steak had only 18 per cent. of waste and 82 per cent. of edible 
materials. Among those with the most waste and least edible 
flesh are the porgy, bass, perch, lobster and oyster. Among 
those with the least waste are fat shad, fat mackerel and dried 
and salt fish, 
Coming to the edible portion, the flesh, we find this to consist 
of— 
1. Water. 2. Solid—actual nutritive substances. 
