6 : REPORT—1885. 
European nations in joining science to its administrative offices. Its 
scientific publications, like the great paleontological work embodying 
the researches of Professor Marsh and his associates in the Geological 
Survey, are an example to other Governments. The Minister of Agricul- 
ture is surrounded with a staff of botanists and chemists. The Home 
Secretary is aided by a special Scientific Commission to investigate the 
habits, migrations, and food of fishes, and the latter has at its disposal two 
specially-constructed steamers of large tonnage. The United States and 
Great Britain promote fisheries on distinct systems. In this country we 
are perpetually issuing expensive Commissions to visit the coasts in order 
to ascertain the experiences of fishermen. I have acted as Chairman of one 
of these Royal Commissions, and found that the fishermen, having only a 
knowledge of a small area, gave the most contradictory and unsatisfactory 
evidence. In America the questions are put to Nature, and not to fisher- 
men. Exact and searching investigations are made into the life-history 
of the fishes, into the temperature of the sea in which they live and 
spawn, into the nature of their food, and into the habits of their natural 
enemies. For this purpose the Government give the co-operation of the 
navy, and provide the Commission with a special corps of skilled naturalists, 
some of whom go out with the steamships and others work in the 
biological laboratories at Wood’s Holl, Massachusetts, or at Washington. 
The different universities send their best naturalists to aid in these in- 
vestigations, which are under the direction of Mr. Baird, of the Smith- 
sonian Institution. The annual cost of the Federal Commission is about 
40,0001., while the separate States spend about 20,000/. in local efforts. 
The practical results flowing from these scientific investigations have 
been important. The inland waters and rivers have been stocked with 
fish of the best and most suitable kinds. Kven the great ocean which 
washes the coasts of the United States is beginning to be affected by the 
knowledge thus acquired, and a sensible result is already produced upon 
the most important of its fisheries. The United Kingdom largely depends 
upon its fisheries, but as yet our Government have scarcely realised the 
value of such scientific investigations as those pursued with success by 
the United States. Less systematically, but with great benefit to science, 
our own Government has used the surveying expeditions, and sometimes 
has equipped special expeditions to promote natural history and solar 
physics. Some of the latter, like the voyage of the ‘ Challenger,’ have 
added largely to the store of knowledge; while the former, though not 
primarily intended for scientific research, have had an indirect result 
of infinite value by becoming training-schools for such investigators 
as Edward Forbes, Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, Wyville Thomson, and 
others. 
In the United Kingdom we are just beginning to understand the 
wisdom of Washington’s farewell address to his countrymen, when he said : 
‘Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general — 
diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government 
