FISHERIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
267 
rendered pliable and enduring by being skillfully roasted. Lines made 
of the giant icelp were also in favor, these being strong and flexible. 
Wilcox found that they now use cotton lines, as a rule. The hooks 
are large and clumsy in appearance, having a stout wooden shank, to 
which is fastened a shorter piece, at an angle of about lp°, by a stout 
seizing of cedar fiber at the point, and an iron barb is lashed to the 
shorter piece near its point. Steel hooks are occasionally used by 
Indians, who consider them inferior to those of their own make. 
THE OYSTER FISHERY. 
Oysters occur in the headwaters of 7 Puget Sound, and are taken for 
market only in the vicinity of Olympia and Tacoma, where the beds 
are exposed at low tide, and it is possible to drive teams directly to the 
shore and load the bivalves into wagons. 
The principal beds, as located on the accompanying chart, to which 
reference is made, are in Lynch Cove, Dalop Bay, Totten, Eld, Budd’s, 
and Carr’s Inlets, and the strait west of Hartstene Island. 
At Olympia the oyster business was of considerable importance in 
past years, but it has greatly declined of late. San Francisco, to which 
the bulk of the shipments was formerly made, now has large local, 
beds on which it chiefly depends ; and the trade with that place has 
been discontinued. The oyster beds in the vicinity of Olympia are of 
considerable size. They appear to be depreciating of late, however, 
owing to the disastrous inroads of starfish and the destructive effects 
of recent extremely cold weather. The beds are all exposed at low tide, 
and are worked only at that time. Teams are driven to the beds, and 
the oysters are gathered by hand, put in sacks, and hauled to the deal- 
ers for shipment. 
The oysters are very small ; the meat is dark in color and has a strong 
coppery taste. From 700 to 900 are required to fill an ordinary wooden 
bucket; these produce, when shucked, about one quart of solid meats. 
Eighty-seven men, chiefly Indians, were more or less regularly en- 
gaged in this industry in 1888. The output amounted to 5,200 sacks of 
100 pounds each, and was valued at $14,300, the average price being 
$2.75 per sack. 
The local demand is not sufficient to utilize all the yield, aud a con- 
siderable trade is carried on with Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and other 
adjacent towns. In making shipments the oysters are placed in sacks, 
each holding six buckets of shell oysters. 
The oyster industry of Tacoma is of less extent than that of Olympia. 
The output in 1888 was 2,700 sacks of 100 pounds each, worth $6,750, or 
$2.50 per sack. 
The combined fishery interests of the various centers on Puget Sound 
are shown in the tables on the following page, covering the year 1888. 
