REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XLV 



it would b€ rather di&cult to find an English counterpart — the private 

 exhibitors, particularly trading exhibitors, being very few. Of the com- 

 prehensiveness and completeness of this truly national exhibition it is 

 impossible to speak too highly." 



Again, Major-General A. Pitt Elvers, a prominent ethnologist, in a 

 letter to the editor of the Times, remarked as follows: 



"In confirmation of the praise you justly bestow upon the arrange- 

 ment of the United States department in the Fisheries Exhibition, I beg 

 leave to draw attention to the fact that in the whole exhibition it is the 

 only one which is arranged historically. In the Chinese, Japanese, 

 Scandinavian, and Dutch courts, there are objects which the scientific 

 student of the arts of life may pick out and arrange in their proper order 

 in his own mind ; but in that of the United States, * * * following 

 the method adopted in the National Museum at Washington, [there has 

 been] attempted something more to bring [the] department into har- 

 mony with modern ideas. * * * This gives the exhibition a value 

 which is apart from commerce, and an interest which is beyond the 

 mere requirements offish-culture, and it may be regarded as one out of 

 many indications of the way in which the enlightened Government of 

 the United States marks its appreciation of the demands of science." 



Again, Mr. James Eussell Lowell, minister to England, in a dispatch 

 to the Secretary of State, under date of May 19, wrote : 



" I have the honor to report that the International Fisheries Exhibi- 

 tion promises to be far more successful than even the most sanguine of 

 its projectors had ventured to hope. The wisdom of Congress in making 

 so liberal an appropriation in furtherance of its object is entirely justified 

 both by the substantial encouragement given to the enterprise at its 

 inception by this proof of interest on the part of the United States, and 

 by the fact that the section devoted to our country is more valuable 

 than that of any other, and valuable for reasons of which we may very 

 properly be proud. 



" I have the highest authority for saying that, quite apart from any 

 consideration of intrinsic interest or curiosity, our share in the exhibi- 

 tion is superior to all others, in virtue of the scientific intelligence shown 

 in its arrangement and classification, thus rendering it more instructive 

 than any other. This is especially gratifying, because it is a triumph of 

 a far higher kind than could be won by any ingenuity in our contriv- 

 a,nces for the breeding or mechanical perfection in our implements for 

 the taking of fish, though in these also we may safely challenge and in 

 some cases defy comparison. 



" The credit of this unquestioned success is due undoubtedly, in the 

 first place, to Professor Baird, whose absence is universally regretted, 

 but hardly less to the intelligence, zeal, and untiring energy of Pro- 

 fessor Goode and his assistants, who worked literally night and day in 

 order to be ready for the day fixed for the opening of the exhibition. 



"I shall naturally have occasion to write again and more fully on this 



