REPORT ON THE FISHERIES OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES. 
BY HUGH M. SMITH, M. U. 
I— GENERAL REMARKS AND STATISTICS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Note on the geography of the region . — The South Atlantic States as here consid- 
ered are North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and eastern Florida. The area of 
these States is 201,972 square miles and the population in 1890 was 4,989,302. The 
population of the counties having commercial fisheries and having a frontage on the 
coast, bays, or rivers, was 1,366,323. The principal cities and towns of the region on 
the coastal waters aud rivers are Elizabeth City, Edenton, Plymouth, Washington, 
Newbern, Beaufort, aud Wilmington, in North Carolina; Georgetown, Charleston, 
and Beaufort, in South Carolina; Savannah, Brunswick, Darien, and St. Marys, in 
Georgia, and Fernandina, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine, in Florida. These are 
also the most important fishing centers. The coast line following the general trend 
ot the shore is about 950 miles in length, but the large number of islands, sounds, 
bays, and estuaries give a shore line four or five times longer. 
Scope of the report . — The investigation on which this report is based was person- 
ally conducted by a part of the divisional force during 1890 and 1891. The statistical 
and other information relates to the years 1889 and 1S90, and affords an excellent 
basis for comparison with the fisheries as they existed in 1880, when the IT. S. Fish 
Commi ssion instituted a careful inquiry in this region in behalf of the Tenth Census, 
the reports of which contain detailed chapters on the history, methods, and statistics of 
the coast and river fisheries of each State.* The present report is primarily intended 
to be a statistical account of the present condition of the fisheries of this region. The 
methods employed in the fisheries have undergone too few changes during the past 
decade to require a special discussion at this time. It will be sufficient to notice under 
each State the most marked differences as compared with 1880. 
The plan of the statistical presentation contemplates a detailed exhibition of the 
fisheries of each State by counties and river basins. In some cases, where the fishery 
interests of two adjoining counties are closely commingled, the statistics have also 
been combined; and in the upper courses of some of the rivers where the fisheries are 
on a small scale a combination of the figures for several counties has been made. 
* The principal papers on the fisheries of this region are the following : 
The Coast Fisheries of the South Atlantic States, by R. Edward Earll. <^The Fisheries and Fish- 
ery Industries of the United States, section n, Geographical Review of the Fisheries for 1880. 
The River Fisheries of the Sonth Atlantic States, by Marshall McDonald. <^The Fisheries and 
Fishery Industries of the United States, section v, History and Methods of the Fisheries. 
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