166 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



shed along one side which serves as a store-house for barrels, nets, oars, 

 salt, etc. The houses are located on the sandy beach within a few feet 

 of the waters edge. When the boats arrive the fish are carried to the 

 receiving troughs in front of the houses in barrows made of half-bar- 

 rels with board handles. The troughs are inclined at a slight angle, 

 and at the lower portion stands the cleaner, who culls the fish, scrapes 

 their entrails into the waste tubs, plunges them into the wash trough, 

 where the dirt and blood are removed, and then passes them into the 

 house for icing and shipment. The fish lose about one-twelfth of their 

 weight in dressing. 



Attached to or near by the fish-houses are ice-houses made of rough 

 boards, double-walled and lined with sawdust. Their size varies from 

 14 to 30 feet in length, 16 to 20 feet in width, and 10 to 15 feet in height. 

 They are often sunk 6 feet below the surface. 



Smoking of ivhitefish. — Some of the fishermen have little smoke- 

 houses where the smaller fish are lightly smoked for local sale or ship- 

 ment. These are mere huts, the largest being scarcely more than 7 

 feet square. Smoking began in a primitive way in 1869, increasing in 

 a few years till 2,000 or 2,500 boxes, containing 10 pounds each, were 

 smoked annually. For four years prior to 1885 only a few fish had been 

 shipped, but 300 or 400 pounds were smoked weekly for home use. 



The smoking process is as follows : The fish are cleaned and put in 

 brine for three to five hours ; they are then impaled in strings of five 

 on wooden sticks or iron bars, and hung in the smoke-house for about 

 an hour to drain. A hard-wood fire is then started and for about half 

 an hour they are smoked with the door of the house open, to fix them. 

 The door is then closed and the fish are exposed to the smoke of a hot 

 fire for three or four hours longer to give them a good color. The fish 

 lose one-third of their weight in smoking. 



About 5,000 pounds of No. 2 and No. 3 whitefish, herring, and small 

 trout were thus prepared in 1885, bringing 7 cents a pound wholesale. 



Capital invested in the fisheries. — This amounted to $8,365, divided as 

 follows: Thirteen pound-nets, $6,500 ; 5 pound-net and 11 other boats, 

 $525 j shore property, $1,340. 



56. CHICAGO AND SOUTH CHICAGO-, COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



Relative importance as fishing centers. — The coast-line of Cook County 

 south of Chicago stretches for a distance of 10 miles to the Indiana 

 State line ; it is low and sandy throughout its whole extent. Chicago 

 and South Chicago are the only places in the county from which fishing 

 is carried on. Although Chicago is the center of a large fish trade, the 

 commercial fishing in the immediate vicinity of the city is not at all ex- 

 tensive, and the city depends on more distant waters for its supply of 

 fish. South Chicago, on the contrary, a town of 2,000 people at the 

 mouth of Calumet River, about 12 miles from Chicago, is a fishing cen- 

 ter of some importance ; it is a manufacturing and railroad town, and 



