A STATISTICAL REPORT ON THE ITSHERIES OE THE MIDDLE 
ATLANTIC Sl'ATES. 
By HUGH M. SMITH, M. D., 
Assistant in charge Division of Statistics and Methods of the Fisheries, U. S. Fish Commission. 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
GcograpJlical features of the I'ef/iou . — The group of coast States einbracecl by the 
title of this paper consists of Xew York, New Jersey, Peiiiisytvauia, Delaware, Mary- 
laud (including District of Columbia), and Yirgiuia. The Middle Atlantic States are 
sometimes regarded as including only the four States first named, but from the stand- 
point of the commercial fisheries the inclusion of Maryland and Yirginia with the others 
mentioned and their exclusion from the group of States lying further to the south, are 
not only proper but are fully warranted by numerous considerations. While it is true 
that the fisheries of iMaryland and Yirginia have certain features that resemble tho.-e 
of North Carolina and other States of the South Atlantic seaboard, by far the strongest 
affiliations and resemblances are with the Middle Atlantic region. 
These States have an area of 1.59,700 square miles, or about the same as Great 
Britain and Ireland, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium combined. The land area is 
152,005 square miles and the water area 7,035 S(piare miles. New York has the greatest 
land area, but Maryland, next to the smallest of the States, has relatively and actually 
the largest water area; this amounts to 2,3.50 square miles, or about 20 per cent of the 
total surface. The water areas subject to the juri.sdiction of the several States are as 
follows: 
State.s. 
Sfjnare 
miles. 
New York 
1, ,550 
Xew Jer.sey 
3fi0 
reimsYlYauia 
2 ::o 
Delaware 
90 
Marylaml (including District of Columbia) 
2,300 
Virginia 
2,325 
Miscellaneous (iinassigned waters in Delaware, 
lower Xew York, and Karitan bays) 
720 
Total 
7, 035 
The length of the coast line of this section, following the indentations of the bays 
and including both sides of the rivers to the limits of commercial fishing, is approxi- 
mately 5,400 miles. The extreme northern and southern }>oints on the coast of these 
States, however, are only 340 miles apart in an air line. 
This region had a population in 4800 more than one-fourth that of the entire 
country, namely, 15,798,055, while the counties having a frontage on the salt and fresh 
waters of the section and maintaining economic fisheries had a population of nearly 
one-eighth that of the United States, namely, 7,085,220. 
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