FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885, 99 



in the seines. Perch and suckers make Dp the remainder of the catch 

 of the pound-net and seine fishermen. 



Collecting steamers. — The small steamers, Maxwell and Hahn, were 

 used in buying fish for Escanaba from the fisheries of the surround- 

 ing region until June, 1885, when they were transferred to Manistique. 

 The 30- ton steamer Francis E. Anderson was built in Chicago, in the 

 fall of 1884, to take their place at Escanaba, and now makes regular 

 collecting trips around Big and Little Bay de Noquet. She has a speed 

 of 12 miles an hour. It is claimed that the steamer A. Booth, which 

 was here in 1884, can run 18 miles an hour, though her usual speed is 

 12 miles. In May, 1884, the steamers Hahn aud Maxwell begau opera- 

 tions, and stopped in August, during which time they collected 165,628 

 pounds of whitefish, 71,505 pounds of trout, 8,948 pounds of sturgeon, 

 and 6,433 pounds of dory. The steamer A. Booth collected, from May 

 to November of the same year, 128,562 pounds of whitefish, 66,219 

 pounds of trout, 1,000 pounds of sturgeon, 1,481 pounds of dory, and 

 6,364 pounds of herring. It is customary with Booth's steamers to give 

 checks in payment for the fish. These are used as currency and taken 

 at par by the stores in the vicinity, which often remit them to wholesale 

 grocers in the larger cities by whom they are sent to the banks for col- 

 lection. In this way the " fish currency " very frequently goes to Chi- 

 cago, and sometimes to places as remote as New York and Boston. 



Detailed description of freezing house. — Through the kindness of Mr. 

 Miles, Messrs. A. Booth & Sons 7 superintendent at Escanaba, we were 

 enabled to make a thorough inspection of their freezing establishment, 

 the results of which are embodied in the following description : 



The freezer is a three-story wooden structure, with a value of about 

 $8,000. Adjoining it is an ice-house, worth one-fourth as much more, in 

 which is kept a supply of block ice packed in sawdust. 



Before being used, the ice is crushed, in a machine made in Philadel- 

 phia, by means of a revolving iron cylinder with wrought-irou teeth 

 about 4 inches long, which play between knife-like projections an 

 inch and a quarter long, attached to the bar across the bottom of the 

 opening through which the ice is driven. In this formidable apparatus 

 5 or 6 tons of ice may in twenty minutes be reduced to a mealy mass, 

 the greater part of which is pulverized to the condition of snow, and 

 it contains no pieces over 2 inches long. 



Along the side of a room on the lower floor of the freezing-house are 

 four wooden stalls or freezing-bins. They are open in front, but when 

 partially or wholly filled may be closed with loose boards. Across the 

 apartment are the washing-tanks. 



On the second floor, in another part of the building, are the refriger- 

 ating or storage rooms. They are 26 feet long on the inside, and from 

 10 to 15 feet wide, and are separated from each other by heavy parti- 

 tions made of matched pine boards, with a 6 inch packing of pul- 

 verized charcoal. The sides, and in some cases the ends of the rooms 



