REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45 



The importance of the subject may be inferred from the fact that it 

 may be stated, without exaggeration, that the waters bordering our 

 shores can be made to yield a larger percentage of nutriment, acre for 

 acre, than the land. Indeed, fish culture is the only efficient means by 

 which the fertilizing ingredients of the soil, which are constantly car- 

 ried into the ocean by sewage, can be reclaimed for the reproduction of 

 nutriment to organized beings. By want of a reclamation of this kind, 

 certain portions of the earth thickly inhabited in ancient times have 

 become sterile and almost deserted. 



For the purpose of giving an idea of the nature and extent of the 

 operations of the United States Fish Commission, Professor Baird gives 

 the following statement, showing the distribution of fish during the 

 years 1874 and 1875 : 



Of young shad 18, 689, 550 



Of Penobscot salmon 2, 294, 505 



Of California salmon 4, 581, 340 



Total young fish 25, 505, 455 



To this is to be added the hatching and distribution, during the winter 

 and spring of 1S75-70, of California salmon, Penobscot salmon, land- 

 locked salmon, and lake white-fish, not yet completed, amounting to at 

 least fourteen million fish, thus making a total of forty million fish sup- 

 plied by the United (States Fish Commission in three years. This, at 

 the assumed ratio of 1 to 200, would represent the proceeds of eight 

 thousand million of eggs laid in the natural way, and subject to all the 

 perils of natural spawning. 



Polaris expedition. — Dr. Emil Bessels during the year has continued his 

 labors at the Institution on the scientific materials which were saved 

 from the Polaris expedition to the Arctic regions in the years 1871-'73, 

 with the exception of two months in the summer, which were devoted to 

 an attempt to make an exploration of Alaska in the United States 

 steamer San-mac. He was, however, unfortunately shipwrecked and 

 lost all his outfit. The first volume of the scientific results of the 

 Polaris Expedition, relating to astronomy, pendulum experiments, temper- 

 ature, winds, psychrometer, solar radiation, terrestrial radiation, ozone, 

 face of the sky, meteorology, those taken at sea, &c, has been printed, 

 and makes 793 pages. The volume will contain 900 pages, 14 plates, 2 

 maps, and 40 wood-cuts. Volumes II and III are under preparation, the 

 former being devoted to natural history, comprising zoology, botany, geol- 

 ogy, palaeontology, mineralogy, containing about 250 pages, 10 plates, and 

 39 wood-cuts ; the latter will comprise a complete monograph on the Es- 

 kimo, illustrated by a hundred plates and 300 wood-cuts. Of the former, 

 35 are ready to be engraved ; of the latter 122 are drawn aud 74 are en- 

 graved. Theexpeuse of preparation of thisworkaud of theillustrationsis 

 defrayed by an appropriation of $15,000 by Congress at its last session. 



