THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 103 
whale carried the pioneers of this trade far out upon the banks 
of Newfoundland, and into the waters around Nantucket. 
But it was not until after our civil war that the fisheries be- 
gan to grow with steady increment. Professor Goode estimates 
the value of our products now at more than $100,000,000. Our 
Census bulletins amplify and specify, by States and localities, 
the products of our fisheries. They show the capital invested in 
1880 to be $37,955,349; and the number of persons employed at 
131,426. For the variety of this and kindred industries I refer 
to the table prepared by Professor Goode, which I shall append 
to my remarks. Its figures are more significant for our legisla- 
tive action than any ancient, classic or hallowed relations which 
the curiosities of profane or sacred literature may furnish. 
NEW INVENTIONS. 
Beyond all the dreams of poetry, the fables of mythology, or 
the enthusiasm of such dreamers as Izaak Walton, has been the 
progress of our fishing industry under the advanced conditions 
and inventions of our time. 
It was a great step when Jacquard made his famous net. It 
astounded the dullards of the -age, and made him fora time a 
demi-god among the astonished fishermen of France and Eng- 
land. But it was only a step compared with the strides now being 
made by the improved, and less expensive apparatus invented to 
capture, preserve, and transport fish. Our newly fashioned 
trawling nets, recently on exhibition in South Kensington, are 
marvels. Our unrivalled fishing-schooner, with its special ad- 
vantages, captured the admiring thousands who gazed on her 
model in the British exhibition. The steam-vessels rigged for 
the whale fishing; the purse-seine and its machinery; the new 
and deadly explosive harpoon and bomb lance for the monsters 
of the deep and the deeps below the depths, which our scientific 
plummets are sounding—all these new modes of force, thus har- 
nessed by mechanism, have received incentive, inspiration, and 
aid from the efforts of voluntary and State associations, as well 
as from home and foreign exhibitions under Federal patronage 
and appropriations. ed 
