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BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
VI.— FISHERIES OF THE RIVER BASINS. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
Iii a preceding part of this report, reference has been made to the importance of 
the fresh- water fisheries of the South Atlantic States, and figures have been pre- 
sented (Table 6) showing that the value of the products taken in fresh water is much 
greater than the results of the salt-water fisheries. In this chapter it is intended to 
discuss in greater detail this branch of the fisheries and to exhibit its importance by 
a series of special tables. 
The occurrence of marine fishes in brackish and fresh water and of fresli-water 
species in brackish and salt water has necessitated a somewhat arbitrary separation 
of the fisheries. As a rule, all fishing for anadromous and typically fresh- water fish 
has been included in the accompanying tables, but the taking of salt-water products 
in fresh water has in most cases been disregarded ; an exception being made, for 
instance, in St. Johns River, in the headwaters of which the capture of mullet can 
only be regarded as a fresh- water fishery. 
In the accompanying tables the extent of the fisheries in most of the river basins 
of the South Atlantic States is given, the omissions consisting of a few minor streams 
whose commercial fisheries are unimportant or carried on by fishermen from other 
rivers. In the case of the rivers emptying into Albemarle Sound and Winyah Bay, 
it has not been deemed necessary to show separately the fisheries of the individual 
streams. In the former region the fishing in the sound at and around the mouths of 
the principal rivers can not with satisfactory accuracy be separated from that in the 
rivers, and the fisheries of some of the streams entering Winyah Bay are too unim- 
portant to require individual specification. 
STATISTICS OF THE RIVER FISHERIES. 
The four tables which follow illustrate the extent of the fisheries of the river 
basins as they existed in 1889 and 1890. The tables relate to the persons employed, 
the boats and apparatus used, and the quantity and value of the products taken in 
each basin. The products are shown in two tables, one being a condensed statement 
of the yield of each species, the other giving the catch in the various forms of apparatus. 
The fresh- water fisheries of this region gave employment to 8,343 persons in 1889, 
and 8,497 persons in 1890. The capital invested was $700,608 in the former year, and 
$720,333 in the latter. The quantity of products taken was 27,773,312 pounds in 
1889, and 31,353,272 pounds in 1890, the value of the same being $766,300 and 
$833,165, respectively. 
Most of those engaged in the industry in the fresh waters are actual fishermen. 
Only 705 persons in 1889 and 709 in 1890 were shoresmen and carriers, leaving 7,638 
persons in 1889 and 7,788 persons in 1890 who were employed in the taking of fishery 
products, and all of these were shore and boat fishermen, there being no fresh-water 
vessel fisheries in these States. 
The fishing property of the fresh waters consisted in 1890 of 24 vessels, engaged 
in transporting products, worth $12,555; 3,759 boats, worth $170,060; 953 pound nets, 
worth $81,529; 585 seines, worth $79,543; 87,557 gill nets, worth $172,832; 1,623 mis- 
cellaneous nets, worth $5,925; 1,165 pots, worth $1,755; lines worth $897; and shore 
and cash property valued at $195,237. 
