72 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
General, however, decided that the State had no jurisdiction 
over the subject beyond low water mark on the ocean coast. A 
bill was introduced by Hon. Mr. Sewell, of New Jersey, looking 
to the passage of a national law regulating this subject. This 
was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, to consider 
whether such a law would interfere with our treaty obligations 
under the Treaty of Washington. Fortwo seasons a sub-commit- 
tee of that committee has been investigating the subject, and 
has visited many of the principal points along the ocean coast 
from Fortress Monroe, Virginia, to Portland, Maine. A volume 
of valuable testimony has been gathered on the subject, and I 
confess that I had no conception of the importance of this ques- 
tion until I entered upon that investigation. It is almost as 
fathomless as the ocean itself. We have met this evening to 
consider this grave and important subject, and I now take great 
pleasure in introducing to you the Hon. Theodore Lyman, of 
Massachusetts, who will deliver the annual address of the Asso- 
ciation.” 
SPEECH OF Hon. THEODORE LYMAN. 
Old Rondelet wrote a great work at the beginning of the six- 
teenth century on sea fishes. His breadth of view included un- 
der the term “ Fishes.” almost every living thing that he found 
in salt water. It is in relation not to a fish, but to the radiated 
Medusa-head that he uses these fine words, more familiar, per- 
haps, to our older naturalists than to those of the rising genera- 
tion: Lmmensa et summe admirabilis det potentia atgue solertia tn rebus 
celestibus tisgue que tn aere et terra fiunt, maxime vero in mart, in guo 
tam varie et stupende rerum forme conspiciuntur ut querendi et contem- 
plandi nullus usquam futurus sit finis—“Vast and highly admirable 
are the power and skill of God in things heavenly and earthly | 
and in those of the air, but more especially in the sea, where are 
beheld shapes so various and stupendous that the study and con- 
templation of them shall never end.”’ 
He spoke thus in a spirit of prophesy. Three centuries have 
passed and we are still contemplating and investigating the 
things of the sea. We have skimmed its surface with muslin 
nets in search of its infusoria, and we have let down dredges and 
