14 
REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
in hunting for pearls. The streams to which particular attention 
has been given with reference to the abundance and distribution of 
the useful mussels are the Mississippi in Iowa and Wisconsin, the 
Illinois, the Iowa, the Kentucky, the Maumee, the Minnesota, the 
Ohio, and the Wabash. In this work the Bureau has had the active 
cooperation of professors in the universities of Iowa, Minnesota, Mis- 
souri, and Vermont, and of other educational institutions, as well as 
persons associated in a practical way with the mussel fishery and 
pearl-button industry. Experiments in the artificial propagation of 
mussels have been continued, and a large number of fishes have been 
infected with larvae of several species of mussels; through the cour- 
tesy of the university authorities this important work, begun in the 
field in autumn, w T as conducted during winter and spring in the 
laboratories of the University of Missouri. 
Various available sites in the upper Mississippi basin have been 
examined with a view to locating the biological laboratory whose es- 
tablishment was recently authorized by Congress. Among the places 
visited by representatives of the Bureau were Muscatine, Fairport, 
Davenport, Clinton, and Comanche, in Iowa; La Crosse, in Wiscon- 
sin; Winona and Homer, in Minnesota ; Rock Island, in Illinois; and 
Terre Haute and Vincennes, in Indiana. After a careful considera- 
tion of the advantages and disadvantages offered by the different 
places, a location at Fairport, Iowa, was found to be the most suitable 
and it has accordingly been secured. The site comprises 60 acres of 
elevated land directly on the bank of the Mississippi. This station 
will be devoted to the study of all problems connected with the 
aquatic fauna of the Mississippi Valley, but it will be particularly 
concerned with the cultivation and preservation of the mussels in 
the interests of the pearl-button industry. 
EXPERIMENTS IN SPONGE CULTURE. 
The Bureau is gratified to announce the successful outcome of 
experiments in sponge culture in Florida, and will shortly make pub- 
lic a detailed account of the work that has extended over a series 
of years. The recent progress has been such as to warrant the Bureau 
in recommending sponge culture as a feasible commercial enter- 
prise, and it is understood that a private company has already been 
organized to conduct sponge-cultural operations following the 
methods developed and made known by the Bureau. During the year, 
sponge cuttings grown at the experimental grounds in Cape Florida 
Channel have, at the end of twenty-nine months, attained an’ average 
weight of about 1.25 ounces, the maximum being nearly 2 ounces and 
the minimum about 0.75 ounce after perfect cleaning and thorough dry- 
ing. The growth in Anclote Channel was approximately equal to this, 
but the cuttings at Soldier Key grew comparatively little. It is evi- 
dent that factors of environment not yet fully understood have 
considerable influence on both the quality and the rate of growth of 
