388 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
science. To that and to the enthusiasm of Powell and 
his corps of workers the subsequent success of the Bureau 
of Ethnology is almost entirely due. 
To go back a little, in 1871 the United States Fish 
Commission was created by Congress and Baird appointed 
Commissioner. The details of this matter are recorded 
in a subsequent chapter. 
The work of the Commission was begun at Wood’s 
Hole, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1871, and the 
station was visited by J. Gwyn Jeffreys, the distinguished 
British naturalist, by Agassiz, Packard, J. D. Whitney 
and other eminent men of science. Numberless fisher- 
men were interviewed and the deadly “fish pounds” 
carefully inspected. On the 5th of October Baird had a 
conference in Boston with the State Fish Commissioners 
to discuss the question of regulating the pounds which 
at the time seemed chiefly responsible for the decrease 
in the shore fisheries. ‘The work excited general inter- 
est, and J. Carson Brevoort, the eminent ichthyologist 
of New York, offered the free use of all of his notes, 
drawings and material. Baird returned to Washington 
October 16th. 
In the autumn of that year occurred the great fire at 
Chicago, destroying the new building of the Chicago 
Academy of Sciences, with a large collection, including 
much invertebrate material borrowed from the Washing- 
ton collection, together with the collections, notes and 
MSS. of Dr. William Stimpson, friend of Baird and 
Kennicott, and the Director of the Chicago institution. 
As this comprised his lifework, type specimens and draw- 
ings, he never recovered from the shock. 
_ In 1872 an important change took place in regard to 
Baird’s relations with the Smithsonian collections. All 
