2.—REPORT OF OBSERVATIONS RESPECTING THE OYSTER. 
RESOURCES AND OYSTER FISHERY OF THE PACIFIC COAST 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 
By Ciuartes H. TOWNSEND. 
CALIFORNIA. 
SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 
The oyster industry of the Pacific coast, exclusive: of the trade in 
the small indigenous species, has never extended beyond the limits of 
the bay of San Francisco, where it has been restricted to the growing 
or fattening of seed or yearling oysters, brought annually in large 
quantities from the Atlantic coast and kept in the waters of the bay 
until they attain a marketable size. Although this method of supply- 
ing the market has been practiced by the oyster-dealers of San Fran- 
cisco for many years, so that since the completion of the first overland 
railroad there has constantly been a supply of eastern oysters in the 
bay, it has generally been understood that there was no natural 
increase of the species, its alleged failure to propagate being usually 
attributed to the low temperature of the water. Some recent studies 
of the oyster beds and of the physical conditions of the bay of San 
Francisco by myself, under the direction of the United States Commis- 
sioner of Fish and Fisheries, have yielded data sufficient to warrant a 
review of the entire subject in a new light. 
The interesting fact that oysters do propagate in San Francisco Bay, 
in certain favorable localities at least, calls for some explanation as to 
the long acceptance by the public of the statement that there has been 
no natural increase. This state of things may have resulted from one 
or more of the following conditions, perhaps in part from all of them, 
namely: The popular knowledge of the low temperature of the water 
as compared with the same latitude on the Atlantic coast; the peculiar 
situation of the localities where the imported oysters were laid-out; the 
enemies they were known to have in Pacific waters; and the lack of 
sufficient public interest to demand the study and outlay necessary 
to discover the real truth respecting the life of the eastern oyster in 
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