[17] 



FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 529 



United States in the winter of 1881-82. Mr. Nelson's collections are of the same char- 

 acter as those of Mr. Turner, and are very extensive. 



In 1881 a party of observers, under Lieutenant Eay, United States Army, and in- 

 cluding two trained naturalists and collectors, Mr. John Murdoch and Mr. Smith, 

 were sent by the Signal Service Bureau to Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Arctic 

 Ocean, one of the series of international signal stations, where they still remain. 

 They were visited in 1882 by a relief party, which brought back from there an inter- 

 esting collection of aquatic animals and ethnological specimens, and still larger col- 

 lections are promised for this year. 



Smithsonian Institution. — The Alaska Commercial Company, through its officers and 

 agents in San Francisco and Alaska, has not only rendered every possible aid to 

 Alaskan explorations, on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, but has also made, 

 many valuable contributions in zoology, especially with reference to the seals and 

 seal fisheries. From Mr. Henry Elliott, an agent of the company, especially valuable 

 specimens, drawings, and observations, mainly illustrative of the habits of seals, have 

 been received. 



In 1871, Captain Charles Bryant, in charge of the Fur Seal Islands, sent to Wash 

 ington a very large collection of the skeletons, skulls, and skins of seals and walruses. 



Mr. Leonhard Stejneger is now making a zoological survey of Bering Island, on 

 the coast of Kamtschatka, from which place he has already sent the skulls of two 

 interesting ziphioid whales, and a large collection of bones of the extinct Bhytina, or 

 Arctic sea-cow. 



FOREIGN. 



Navy Department. — The United States Navy lays claim to two of the most important 

 oceamc expeditions of the world, in which the study of aquatic life formed essential 

 features — the Wilkes Expedition of 1838-42, and the North Pacific Exploring Expe- 

 dition of 1853-'56. In addition to these, there have been numerous smaller surveys 

 by the same service, which have yielded good results in the same line, and many 

 naval officers have been constant contributors to the National Museum from all 

 quarters of the globe. A more important sphere of usefulness, however, for its 

 bearing upon aquatic life, as well as upon hydrography, has probably been that of 

 deep-sea sounding, in which the United States Navy has always taken a j)rominent 

 stand. A full account of its achievements in this direction would be impossible here, 

 and we can only refer to the more important steps taken in the improvement of 

 sounding methods. We may, perhaps, be pardoned for quoting in this connection 

 the following paragraph from a recent paper by Captain George E. Belknap, United 

 States Navy, as a deserved tribute to this service as well as to the originator of the 

 present method of using steel wire for sounding. 



"The impartial student, whether American or European, will accord to the United 

 States naval service and Coast Survey merited prominence in diligent and persistent 

 effort, inventive appliance, and intelligent adaptation of ideas and methods, from 

 whatever source, towards the satisfactoiy solution of the problem [of deep-sea sound- 

 ing] ; but it was the good fortune of Sir William Thomson, of Glasgow University, 

 to conceive the best and simplest means of measuring the depths; and to-day, thanks 

 to his genius, it is as easy for the questioning seamar: or scientist to bring back 

 answer from the depth of five miles as it formerly was fron: a quarter of a mile." 



The earliest use of wire for sounding purposes, of which we can find mention, was 

 made by the Wilkes United States Exploring Expedition, between 1838 and 1842, on 

 Avhich most of the vessels were supplied with copper wire, about three thirty-seconds 

 of an inch in diameter, and spliced together by means of twisted ends, covered over with 

 solder. Th e experiments were unsatisfactory, owing to the frequent parting of the 

 wire, and were finally abandoned. The second trial with wire appears to have been 

 made in August, 1849, by Captain Barnett, of K. M. S. "Thunderer," between the 

 Banks of Newfoundland and the Western Islands. The wire was of iron, varying in 

 size from No. 1 to 5, and was wound on a small reel, the sinker used weighing 61 



2441— Bull. 27 34, 



