REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XLYII 
THE PACIFIC COAST. 
The development of the ocean fishing-grounds along the Pacific coast 
of the United States was taken up for the first time during the past 
year, the work being vigorously prosecuted and yielding results of 
great importance. The surveys were made by the steamer Albatross, 
Lieut. Commander Z. L. Tanner, U. S. Navy, commanding, and while 
the methods of inquiry were essentially the same that had been followed 
on the Atlantic coast, the operations were restricted chiefly to obtain- 
ing information of direct utility to the fishermen. The only extensive 
fishery investigations previously made in that region were conducted 
during the years 1S79 and 1880, in connection with the fishery census, 
by Dr. T. H. Bean, for Alaska, and by Dr. David S. Jordan and Prof. 
Charles H. Gilbert, for Washington, Oregon, and California. Dr. Bean 
accompanied an expedition of the Coast Survey, and his personal obser- 
vations were limited by the movements of the vessel and by the lack of 
proper facilities for offshore examinations. The inquiries of Profs. 
Jordan and Gilbert were principally confined to the use of seine's along 
the shores and to the material obtainable from the small fishing boats 
and the local markets. However, the work of both these parties was 
performed in a most careful and painstaking manner, and the results 
accomplished were of great interest and value, especially as regards 
the inshore resources and the fisheries then existing. A full account 
of their discoveries and observations will be found in u The Fisheries 
and Fishery industries of the United States,” published by the U. S. 
Fish Commission between 1884 and 1887. 
Kespecting the region which he examined, Dr. Jordan explains that, 
“ except the salmon fisheries of the Sacramento and the Columbia and 
the ocean fisheries in the immediate neighborhood of San Francisco, 
the fisheries of the Pacific coast exist only as possibilities; for the most 
part only shore fishing on the smallest scale is done, and no attempt is 
made to discover offshore banks or to develop them when discovered.” 
He refers, however, to an extensive halibut bank, about 8 miles north- 
west of Cape Flattery, off the mouth of the Straits of Fuca, where the 
Indians take halibut in large numbers, and which, he adds, may some- 
time become of importance to the white people. 
Dr. Bean’s report contains a detailed summary of all that was known 
at the time of his visit concerning the fishing- grounds, the fishes, and 
fisheries of Alaska, except those for the marine mammalia, his informa- 
tion being drawn in part from the publications of Dali, Davidson, and 
other Alaskan explorers. After describing the inshore cod-fishing 
grounds occurring along certain portions of the coast, he states that 
“ extended areas of soundings on which cod assemble in great masses 
are present in the Gulf of Alaska, but they have been but little inves- 
tigated, and their limits and characteristics are imperfectly known.” 
Four offshore banks are cited by name — Portlock, Shumagin, Sannak ? 
