Tour the Smithsonian After its First Fifty Years

The very remarkable collection of objects illustrating the Fisheries of the world, which fills to repletion the court immediately to the left of the entrance, and overflows elsewhere, is one upon which volumes might be written,-nay, have been. Nearly all of this splendid collection, which preserves the elusive history, as well as portrays the present condition of this great industry, has been accumulated by the agents of the U. S. Fish Commission; the greater part of it was sent to the lnternational Fisheries Exhibition in London, in I883, where it received valuable accessions, and it is now superior to anything of its kind in the world. Though in theory this department has wider scope, practically the objects in the Fisheries court are those concerned in the capture of fish and other marine animals of commercial importance, or in the outfit peculiar to fishermen. These fall into certain classes and groups. First is the general class: Apparatus of Direct Application, beginning with hand implements. Hand implements include clubs and gob-sticks used in killing fish and seals before or after catching; a great variety of knives of use in the cutting up of seals, whales, large fishes and in the preparation of these for market and some very queer shapes they take!-and the axes and spades used by whalemen and clam-diggers. Then follow the whaling lance, and the thrusting spear or lance (often of extremely ingenious c,onstruction) always carned by the Eskimo seal and walrus hunters.

The next group takes in Implements for Seizure, beginning first with the scoops and dip-nets a great variety of which may be examined. There are dip-nets of silken, hempen and cotton cord; of grass-cord, bark withes, willow twigs, and raw hide distended upon a whalebone hoop and belonging, of course, to Alaska. Scoops are constructed of willow, rattan, splints, and basket-work in bamboo, the latter from India and used in the capture of shrimps; some are spoon-shaped, some ladle-form, some conical, others like abroad shovel. Lastly Alaska shows a net made of cedar-bark and shaped something like a long snowshoe with a deep bag underneath, adapted to the scraping up of sea-urchins from submerged rocks; while the great dippers employed in the menhaden and mackerel fisheries and the landing nets of fly-fishers also come in here.

Oneof the ways in which scoop nets are practically used is shown in the surfsmelt fishery of northern California, as practised by the Yurok. Provided with a triangular bag-net, stretched between two slender poles framed together by a cross-piece like the letter A, the fisherman wades into the surf up to his waist; he turns his back to the in-rolling waves, against whose force he braces himself with a stout stick; then, as the smelts are washed back from the beach by the retreat of the roller, he receives them in his net. The net is deep, and a narrow neck connects it with a long bag behind, into which the fish drop. When he has bagged a bushel or so, he goes ashore and gives them to his squaw.

In India and Chinaenormousdip-nets, called kharo jal, are worked from the shore, or from a platform on a boat, by means of a complicated system of bamboo supports and levers, as shown in the illustration.

The dredges, rakes and tongs employed in gathering oysters, clams and scallops come under this head, a full account of which, as a part of the general subject, can be found in lngersoll's " Monograph of the Oyster Industries of the United States." Gaffs of several forms, the jigs used in catching and handling squids, the Floridan sponge-hook and the oulakan-rake form another group.

The last named is very odd, and belongs to the coast Indians of Puget sound and British America. It consists of a flattened pole, or elongated paddle set along one or both edges with from three to fifty teeth of ivory, bone or iron. In using the rake two persons in a canoe place themselves alongside of a school of oulakan or herring (small fishes whose habit it is to enter the mouths of rivers in the spring in crowded hordes swimming near the surface of the water), and while the man or woman kneeling in the stern of the canoe paddles, the man forward sweeps the rake through the hnny ranks, impaling and tossing into the boat several fishes at each thrust.

The group called Barbed Implements includes the whole range of spears and harpoons-a very large group. Spears may have fixed heads or detachable heads. The former may be single-pointed, like the porpoise spear of the Passamaquoddy Indians, or many-pointed, like our grains and eel-spears; while prongs are both fixed and adjustable. In no direction does savage ingenuity reach such perfection as in the contriving of implements of this kind.

A very large and curious collection of barbed and many-pronged spears for capturingaquatic animals, made by western and arctic Indians and by Eskimos, will excite the visitor's attention. Arctic books generally may be consulted about them, but especially the writings of Elliott, Dall, Swan, Kumlien and Bessels. The absence of wood has caused the bones of whales, etc., to be most ingeniously Gary substituted in many; thus, some from Hudson's bay have the handle composed of 8 to 12 pieces of the jaw-bone of a whale, so completely fitted and lashed together that the whole is as firm as if one piece. The great variety of points and the dexterity in fastening the heads to the shaft should be noted.

Spears with detachable heads may be termed harpoons, the highest examples of which occur in the exhibit devoted to the whale fishery.

The aboriginal fish-spears are many and interesting. Those from northern Alaska have heavy bone heads fastened with sinew to light cedar shafts; a wooden socket in the end receives the barbed point or points through which is rove the line of sinew or rawhide, which holds it, and to which the shaft is attached by a short arp. Some of the points are made of native copper, and have many barbs; others, from the interior are tipped with horn or bone. The heavy ones intended for the seal or whale have the stout staff secured to the bone head by a becket; a wooden socket receives the adjustable barbed tip, to which is fastened the line made of walrus or seal hide, or of kelp; on one side of the staff about its middle is a curved bone peg, against which the fore finger is pressed to give greater grip and force in hurling. Some harpoon heads are of copper with ivory wings. Those from Cape Flattery are very finely made and it is extremely interesting to study the methods and customs of the Makahs as to whaling and scaling. In addition to the great variety of contrivance and accommodation of means to end, the carvings that ornament some of these elaborate weapons of the chase are notable. The buoys often attached serve a double purpose, not only sustaining the shaft, so that it can be recovered, but acting as a drag upon the wounded animal and contributing to its speedy exhaustion.

The very striking series of apparatus which illustrates the great whaling industry is almost entirely the collection of one man, Mr. J. Temple Brown, who acted under the auspices of the U. S. Fish Com. and the Tenth Census. The exhibit embraces for the most part the apparatus used at present; but some rare and interesting implements that were hastily constructed on shipboard in times of necessity, as well as some developed as experiments, have also been included. Most of the objects have been in actual use on whaling voyages, as appears from their marks of wearing. Some of them are now obsolete but have great value as showing how more perfect forms have been developed.

Several objects made and used by the Eskimos of Hudson's Bay and Greenland, in their rude attempts at whaling or otherwise, and brought back by voyagers who have been wintered in those bleak latitudes are included. The labels in this series are so full that particulars as to the separate implements are not necessary here.

Another general division occurs here in taking up Apparatus of Indirect Application, first of all the missiles. The simplest of these will be found among the whaling darts and lances. To give a greater velocity to certain light darts, however, the Alaskans and Australians have each invented the throwing stick (Fig. g6Fa stick so arranged as to seize and follow for a distance equal to its length, the dart when thrown, thus, as it were, lengthening the hand and giving increased leverage and impetus. One kind of spears most often aided by the throwing-stick, and among the Eskamos interesting in form, is the barbed spear made for catching birds. " At certain times,' says Swan, " during stormy weather, the wildfowl congregate in vast numbers ir. Neah bay. The Indians go out in their canoes Witl a bright light from torches of pitchwood placed in the stern. The canoe is paddled stern first among the flocks of Mild fowl. The t ads, bewildered by the light, are killed in great numbers The prongs of the spear get entangled among the feathers and hold fast. A bird is hauled into the canoe, its neck wrung and others in succession qickly speared."

The bow and arrow is extensively used in fishing by all Indians, who show remarkable skill in overcoming the difficulty of shooting through the water. Comparison of these implements with arrows intended for hunting or war will make plain the differences. The greatest number of specimens shown come from Alaska and have ivory points and cedar shafts; many have ivory heads, upon which the barbed tips are made adjustable in diverse ways.

Angling tackle, hooks, lines, rods, artificial bait and other miscellaneous property of anglers next present themselves.

A large space on the screens is covered with hooks, modern and ancient, and used now among Indians and other savage people. There is a series of steel hooks, showing their manufacture from the plain wire in all sizes; jigs and drails for the capture of cod, weakfish, Spanish mackerel, bass, bluefish and dolphin; mackerel jigs formerly extensively used, with lead, ladles, molds, etc., for making them; spoonbaits, trollingspoons, spinners, minnows and insects for salmon, trout, bass, pike and pickerel fishing, matched by lure-baits, of ivory, etc.made by the northwestern savages long before they saw any white men; a collection of over 700 varieties of salmon, bass and trout flies, with their trade labels, the beauty of which bears com parison vdth the case beside them of real insects used for bait. The fishhook is one of the rarest objects of aboriginal handiwork found in the shell heaps or graves. This has gen erally been ascribed to sack of invention, but more likely may be due to the perishability of the materials chosen, as manifested in the modern Eskimo and Indian hooks before us.

Stone was little used by aboriginal fishermen, who depended chiefly upon shell, ivory, bone or horn for the material of their fish hooks, when these were not made of thorns or sharpened pieces of wood; or by combining wood with a flintflake, a splinter of bone or a bronze point. Examples of all these may be found in the archaeological department. Many of thctn are still in use among the savages of the American and other continents or have been imitated in better materials procured from civilized neighbors, and it is these that concern us at present. Two, cut from shell by South Sea Islanders, Mere brought home by whalemen. The Fiji islands are represented by another composed of shell alone. The natives of the lake regions of Nevada send a hook through a piece of tough wood; another contrived out of a bird's claw; and a series attached to a line for catching large fishes, made of pieces of greasewood about an inch long, each with a bit of bone firmly lashed to it at nearly a right angle, so arranged that, when taken in the mouth of the fish, it turns crosswise. The last named recalls the spindle-shaped " hooks " in flint, polished stone and bronze of the neolithic age in Europe. From the Eskimos come ingenious hooks whittled out of reindeer horn, or having stone, ivory, bone or wooden shanks, often carved or inlaid with heads, etc., through the lower end of which are passed barbless ivory, iron or copper points. The gangings are made of split quills, walrus whisker or whalebone, and some have stone or ivory sinkers with snoods, attached. The greatest and most curious variety of hooks, however, are those derived from the piscivorous tribes of our northwestern coast from O.egon to Bering's. strait. Some of the smaller of these are made wholly or ehiefly of bone or ivory- others of wood, as is the practice of many Indians inland; but the majority have the main part of wood elaborately carved with the maker's totem, and the point (always barbless. but generally reflected) of bone or iron. The larger examples are designed for halibut catching, in deep water.

Next we have fishing lines made by American Indians; the cotton, hempen, grass and silk lines of commerce · gut, leaders, and gangings used in various fisheries; sinkers and floats barbarous and civilized; and all the complicated ways in which hand-lines and trawls are rigged for fishing in the deep sea. The display of artificial baits and lures is a large one. Here are scores of drails for bass and bluefish; crawfish, helgramites, frogs, insects and minnows made of soft rubber, hard rubber or metal, each concealing a hook; spoon-baits of diverse material and form; artificial flies by the hundred, and the neatest of books to keep them in; and queer little lures made by savage fishermen who never heard of our artificial baits.

Nets next demand attention. They are the most conspicuous objects in the room, draping the walls, festooned from the ceiling, mounted upon the tops of cases and packed away behind the glass. They add vastly to the decoration of the picturesque whole, and by their varied forms and appurtenances suggest many entertaining enquiries.

Nets are of two kinds,-" entangling " and " encircling." In the first class a group may be termed fixed nets, which are held in position by stakes or anchors and entangle their captives in their meshes. Such are the gill-nets or seines, often of immense extent, used in taking whitefish, shad, herring and sturgeon. These are made of linenthread, have meshes of about five inches square, are from 25 to 100 meshes in depth and sometimes half a mile long. When set so as to drift across the tide (as the Oregon Indians always do their nettlesalmon seines) they are called "drift-nets." When taken from the water they are wound up to dry upon huge reels mounted upon the beach. The class of "encircling" nets begins with the hauling seines,-sometimes more than a mile in length-In which are taken enormous drafts of herring, shad and various fresh-water fishes. The manner of using them can be seen in the photographs suspended about the room; and the nets themselves are festooned to the walls and ceilings. Next to these are the purse-seines employed in mackerel and menhaden fishing, the purpose of which is to surround the shoal of fish sighted, and capture them by closing the bottom of the net, forming a great purse in which as many as a quarter of a million fishes are sometimes taken. Another class of nets embraces those thrown over the fish from the hand, and hence called sassing nets, the use of which is more common in the Mediterranean and Oriental seas than in the United States. Interesting modifications of the general type will be observed in examples from those regions and in nets made by our American redskins, sometimes out of the most unlikely materials.

Traps-apparatus atmost entirety automatic-next claims attention as a class of fishing machinery. The simplest form of this is the weir, models of various kinds of which, American and foreign, together with the netting modifications that have superseded the original weirs in many places, are placed before the visitor's eye.

The simplest weir is nothing but a dam or fence athwart a stream or inlet, behind which fish are caught and crowded in such a way that they can easily be taken. An advanced step was taken when the gateway in the plain fence was made to conduct into a special enclosure for the imprisonment of the captives. This is sometimes a simple corral, but generally consists of several enclosures opening successively into one another, the bewildered captive lessening his chances of finding his way out with each new opening he passes through. These labyrinthine weirs, from which are derived our modern " pounds " and " pound-nets," depend for their success upon the fact that a fish is loath, to the verge of inability, to turn a sharp corner, and hence continually shoots by the door of escape, in his eager course round and round the corral. The next step was the making of weirs in the shape of great wing-dams or converging guides, conducting the fishes moving up stream to spawn (against which these engines are chiefly directed) into various kinds of traps placed in a narrow opening in the fence, from which they could be removed without the uncertainty and labor of taking them in the large corral. Contrivances of this kind are in use all over the world, and have descended from prehistoric times.

The aboriginal trap usually took a conical form. or consisted of a series of basketwork funnels set into one another. We have imitated this in our " fyke-nets," several forms of which, with the long leaders that guide the deluded victims into the fyke, are shown actually or by models. Fyke nets are employed in New England chiefly for the capture of Sounders, blackfish, shad and the like, and in Alaska for salmon.

Besides the fykes and traps fixed in the opening of weirs, many traps are used in the fisheries, the world over, Which Can be moved about and handled, and depend for their catch upon the bait they contain.

The exhibit of this class of fishing gear in the National Museum is very complete and curious. The fundamental idea is still that of the funnel, into the large end of which the fish enters, and having passed on through the small end, is unable to return. The number and dissimil itude of the traps in this great collection is most striking. They come from every continent. Some are big and coarse enough to catch and hold a salmon, others sufficiently close-woven to retain the most diminutive fry that could be regarded as edible, and pretty as bird cages. In shape they are square, cylindrical, barrel shaped, spindle-form, bird-cage-like, orsuggestive of wine bottles and pickle jars; some resemble a mitre, others a carpet-bag or a balloon; the rest are globular, hemispherical, funnelform, flat or nondescript. The materials used make a long list,-sticks, rattans, bamboos, splints of wood and cane, and combinations of basket-work and netting. The rudest are those of the Eskimo, the best finished those of Siam and Japan, and the most numerous those from India.

To know where to stop in describing the Fisheries Court is embarrassing. The exhibit contains, in addition to the elements already mentioned, a great mass of material pertaining to and illustrating the pursuit of fishing in America, the clothing, personal outfit, and social life of fishermen, shown at a glance by lay figures and many great pictures enlarged from photographs by electric light or solar printing. The intricate machinery and processes of deep-sea dredging and the researchmachinery of the U. S. Fish Com. are shovvn, also; full descriptions of these may be found in various reports of the Commission, and a resume is given in Bulletin U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 27, from the pen of Richard Rathbun. Decoys and disguises, aboriginal and modern, for the aid of fishermen and aquatic hunters, form another interesting series of specimens; while a broad section must be left unnoticed in this Handbook, namely that which exhibits the commercial products of the fisheries (especially as food) and the processes of its preparation for human utilization.

Similarly it is impossible to discuss the dredging operations and fish-hatching conducted by the U. S. Fish Com. Much of the apparatus used in deep-sea investigation is shown in this room. At the carF-ponds live fishes are to be seen in various stages of culture. At the Armory building on Sixth street the hatching of shad is open to the examination of interested visitors, who, likewise, may inspect at the Navy Yard the Fish-gawk and the AZoatross, with their scientific apparatus whenever these steamers of the Commission are in port.

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