bulletin of the united states fish commission. 373 
Inner Rough, on the coast of Jutland, Horn Reef, Borkum, Ameland, 
Texel Hakks, also the Little and Great Fisher Bank, and the grounds 
off Penzance, Plymouth, Brixham, and Dartmouth.” 
Mr. Jex, like many others, believes the cause of this depletion, is due, 
in a great measure, to the smallness of the mesh in the cod-end of the 
trawls. This fact is so well recognized by many trawl fishermen that, 
as has been mentioned in a previous chapter, various devices have 
been brought forth to insure the escape of immature fish. 
Just what will be the final result of beam-trawling on the supply of 
fish it is now difficult to say ; time alone can tell. While, however, it 
may be conceded that many who are in good positions to judge ac- 
curately have grave apprehensions of the future, it goes without say- 
ing that the fisherman who depends on his work to support himself 
and family can not afford to look beyond the present, but must use 
his utmost endeavors to catch ail the fish he can, since it is for that 
purpose he ventures forth to brave the perils which always surround 
him. 
K. A Cruise on a British North Sea Trawler. 
Previous to my departure from the United States to attend, on the 
staff of Prof. G. Brown Goode, the International Fishery Exhibition 
held at Berlin, Germany, in 1880, I was instructed by Prof. Spencer F. 
Baird, United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, to make one or 
more cruises on a first-class beam-trawler, if it was found practicable to 
do so. The object in view was that a xnactical study of the beam-trawl 
fishery might be made, and as much information gathered of its details 
as would enable me to prepare a report sufficiently full and explicit to 
convey to American fishermen a comprehensive idea of the apparatus 
used and the methods of fishing. Professor Baird, being*fully cogniz- 
ant of the importance of the beam-trawl fisheries of Europe, and having 
in mind the enormous extent of the fishing grounds to which citizens of 
the United States have access, deemed it desirable that this should be 
done. The result of my studies of the British beam-trawl fishery, then 
and subsequently, has been given in the preceding pages, to which the 
following account of a cruise in a Grimsby trawler may, perhaps, be ap- 
propriately added. 
Leaving Berlin on the evening of June 20, 1880, with Professor 
Goode and his private secretary, Mr. Julius E. Rockwell, we reached 
Flushing the following evening, and arrived in London on the 22d. 
On the next day after our arrival, Professor Goode and myself met Mr. 
Spencer Walpole, now lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Man, but then 
nspeetor of British salmon fis heries, who very kindly gave us the bene- 
fit of his knowledge and advice in regard to the best locality to visit in 
order to gain definite information of the beam-trawl fishery. This he 
decided to be Grimsby, at the mouth of the Humber River, and which 
is one of the most important fishing stations in Great Britain. He also 
