Of the 1,376 vessels included in the foregoing tabulation, 1,062, valued with their cargoes at $2,995,760, were assisted by the service crews alone, 257, valued with their cargoes at $10,321,055, were aided by the life saving crews, with the co-operation of revenue cutters, tugs and other private agencies; sixteen, valued with their cargoes at $1,853,150, were assisted only by outside agencies, and forty-one, valued with their cargoes at $936,115, received no assistance, having been able to take care of themselves after getting into danger.

The following table summarizes the operation of the service from the introduction of the present life saving system, in 1871, to June 30, 1909:

*Including persons rescued

79,110,159 281,152,589

224,934,732

56,217,857

not connected with vessels involved in disaster. **Eighty-five of these were lost at the disaster to the steamer Metropolis in 1877-'78, when service was impeded by distance, and fourteen others in the same year owing to similar causes.

aster.

Including persons not connected with vessels involved in disaster.

Including succor afforded to persons not connected with vessels involved in disIt should be observed that the operations of the service during this period have been limited as follows: Season of 1871-'72, to the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey; seasons of 1872-74, to the coasts of Cape Cod. Long Island and New Jersey: season of 1874-75, to the coasts of New England, Long Island, New Jersey, and the coast from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras; season of 1875-76, to the coasts of New England, Long Island, New Jersey, the coast from Cape Henlopen to Cape Charles, and the coast from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras; season of 1876-'77 and since, all the foregoing, with the addition of the eastern coast of Florida and portions of the lake coasts. In 1877-'78 the Pacific coast was added, and in 1880 the coast of Texas.

The following table shows the number of marine casualties occurring within each of the thirty-four fiscal years from 1876 to 1909 upon the coasts and rivers of the United States and in adjacent waters, and to American shipping at sea and in foreign waters; the number of persons involved in such casualties, the number of lives lost therein, and the ratio of the accompanying fatalities to the number of persons involved and to the number of casualties:

*Exclusive of lives lost where vessels suffered no damage.

Reorganized

in 1910.

THE LIGHTHOUSE SERVICE.

The Lighthouse Service was reorganized by an act of Congress, approved June 17, 1910, an abstract of which appears on page 134 of this volume. Formerly the management of the lighthouses was entrusted to a lighthouse board, organized in conformity to the act of Congress of August 31, 1832. It consisted of the head of the Treasury Department (later of the Department of Commerce and Labor), three officers of the army, two naval officers and a civilian member. The head of the department was ex-officio president of the board, and the ranking naval officer was chairman. There were two secretaries, one a naval officer and one an engineer officer of the army. That system involved divided responsibility, and resulted in much friction in administration. Congress therefore abolished the board and created a Bureau of Lighthouses in the Department of Commerce and Labor, with a commissioner in charge directly responsible to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor.

Under the old system there were sixteen lighthouse districts, each in charge of an army or navy officer. The law of 1910 provided that nineteen districts should be created, each in charge of a civilian inspector, but the President was authorized for a period of three years, from July 1, 1910, to assign army and navy officers to act as district inspectors. The reorganization of the service has not yet been completed. In the fiscal year 1908-'09 the lighthouse establishment maintained 1,580 lighted aids to navigation, including fifty-three light vessels, 7,656 unlighted aids and 2,333 post lights.

For the care and maintenance of these aids there were employed 3,137 keepers. assistant keepers and laborers attending lights, 1,693 officers and seamen on board vessels, 318 employes for construction and repair, also fifty-one lighthouse tenders. The amount expended to maintain the lighthouse establishment in 1908-'09 was $6,337,685 94.

THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES.

The United States Fish Commission was created by an act of Congress passed In 1871, with the object of making inquiries as to the diminution in the number of food fishes of the coasts and lakes of the United States Origin and Growth and to suggest "protective, prohibitory or precautionary of the Service. measures" for conserving the supply. Professor Spencer F. Baird, then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, became the first commissioner. Until 1903 the office was known as "The United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries," and was an independent institution, not included within the scope of any of the executive departments. In 1903 it was transferred to the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor, becoming the United States Bureau of Fisheries. For many years the bureau was without any executive control in fishery affairs Recently, however, it has acquired executive powers in Alaska for the enforcement of a code of laws affecting the salmon fisheries. Since December 28, 1908, it has had supervision of the furseal fisheries in Alaska It also conducts many fish-cultural stations and hatcheries for the distribution of fish and eggs. The hatcheries operated in 1908-'09 numbered thirty-five and the sub-hatcheries and egg-collecting stations eighty-four. The land owned and occupied by the bureau at its fish-cultural and biological stations has an aggregate area of over twelve thousand acres, with a value of $240.000. The improvements and equipments at these stations represent an investment of more than $1,000,000. Other property of the bureau includes four seagoing steam and sail vessels, twenty steam launches and one hundred and fifty small sail, power and row boats, which, with equipment, have a value of $300,000. Its six fish transportation cars are valued at $45,000. The aggregate investment of the federal government in property devoted to the fishery service is thus about $1,585,000.

The following table shows the output of the hatcheries by species for the fiscal year 1908-'09:

Eggs.

32,039,265

300,000

5.821,322 3,723,489

Fish eggs were distributed to the state fisheries in 1908-'09 as follows:

State and species.

California:

Chinook salmon.....

Connecticut:

Lake trout

Brook trout

30,000

Ohio:

Also there were allotted to California 765 crappie and strawberry bass, 3,000 bream, and 240 yellow perch fingerlings, yearlings and adults; to Colorado, 30,000 blackspotted trout fry; to Minnesota, 4.420 crappie and strawberry bass and $16 largemouth black bass fingerlings, yearlings and adults, and to New York, 200,000 brook trout fry.

On the establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor, in 1903, the Alaskan fur-seal service was transferred thereto from the Department of the Treasury, to which it had been attached for many years. In the The Fur-Seal Department of Commerce and Labor this service formed a distinct Fisheries. branch and was administered through the secretary's office until December 28, 1008, when it was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries. The Commissioner of Fisheries has appointed a special board, composed of five members of the bureau's staff who have personal knowledge of the Alaskan fur seals, and to this board will be assigned for consideration and recommendation all matters pertaining to the seal ilfe on the Pribilof Islands, the blue fores

and other animal resources on the islands, and the government's relations to the natives and the lessees. On January 13, 1909, the secretary, on the recommendation of the commissioner, appointed ar. advisory board for the fur-seal service, consisting of David Starr Jordan, Leonhard Stejneger, C. Hart Merriam, Frederic A. Lucas, Edwin W. Sims, Frank H. Hitchcock and Charles H. Townsend.

From the report of the agent at the scal fisheries it appears that during the season which closed July 31, 1908, the lessees were unable to obtain the quota of 15,000 skins, for the reason that the requisite number of bachelor seals did not appear in the drives during the legal season. The total take of skins was 14,336, The of which 11,022 came from St. Paul Island and 3,314 from St. George Island. lease has now terminated and the government takes and disposes of the seals directly. In order to repair the great losses which have occurred in the seal fisheries through pelagic sealing, Congress passed a law, approved April 21, 1910, further regulating the conditions under which seals can be taken. Under the law and on the advice of the advisory cominission, Secretary Nagel ordered the killing of most of the superfluous male seals known as bachelors. The full text of the act can be found on page 130 of this volume.

Discussing the destructive effects of pelagic sealing, the Commissioner of Fisheries said in his annual report for the fiscal year 1908-'09: "If pelagic sealing could have been stopped in 1897, the seal herd to-day would Havoc of contain 300,000 breeding cows (as against 50,000, the number relagic Sealing. for the season of 1909), and the product of the hauling grounds would have risen to 50,000 skins, yielding a government revenue of $500.000, as against less than 15,000 skirs and a government revenue of $143,000 for the present year. Without the drain of pelagic sealing the herd would continue to increase almost indefinitely.

"The Alaskan fur seals constitute the most valuable fishery resource that any government in the world ever possessed. It is little less than a national disgrace that the herd of four to six million seals which came into our possession when Alaska was acquired from Russia and has been under our charge ever since should have been allowed to dwindle until to-day it numbers less than 150,000 of all ages. The extent of our loss may be partially seen when it is stated that the failure to maintain the seal herd has during the last thirteen years resulted in a Let loss of revenue of not less than $1,600.000, has permitted nearly 300,000 fur seals, having a market value of over $5,700,000, to be appropriated by aliens, and has encouraged those nefarious pelagic operations by which additional fur seals having a value of at least $5,000,000 have been killed at sea but not recovered; while through the slaughter of breeding females their pups-on the islands, unborn and prospective with a potential value of fully $20,000,000 have been sacrificed and wasted."

The Census Bureau is preparing a report on the extent and value of the fisheries of the United States, for the year 1908, but its figures are not yet available. Statistics covering earlier years, collected by the Bureau of Fisheries, show these results: Capital Invested in the Industry.

Pacific States)

Value.

Gulf States....[1,512,283,708 $39,482,010|

and Alaɛka.... 336,521,752 16,553,301 Totals...... [2,033,992,699 $61,047,909

.....

The following table shows the quantity and value of fish landed by American fishing vessels at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., in 1908, from grounds off the coasts of the United States, Newfoundland and the Canadian provinces:

The maximum extent of the public domain was 1,849.072.587 acres. Of this total 259.171.787 acres were ceded by the states to the United States, 1,589,900,800 acres were purchased or acquired by cession from foreign countries. From this total should be deducted lands in Tennessee, which, by the act of February 18, 1841, were given to that state. No land within the boundaries of Texas ever became a part of the public domain.

The Government's
Land Policy.

Of the maximum area there were left on July 1, 1909, 731,354,081 acres, of which 368,016,038 acres are in Alaska. The remainder has been disposed of by the United States under various laws passed for that purpose, by direct sale to individuals or associations, by grants to states for school or other purposes, to grants in aid of the construction of public roads or railroads, by direct grants to individuals for military or other services and by allotments to individuals under the homestead or other public land laws. After the first cessions by the original states to the nation, the area thus ceded amounting to 259,171,787 acres, the Congress of the Confederation adopted the policy holding those lands as an asset for the payment of the debts of the United States. That policy-the policy of sale-was adhered to pretty generally for the first fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, and it was not until 1862 that the homestead or free home for the settler theory supplanted it. Since 1862 the government pursued a programme of development, seeking to distribute as large a portion of the public domain as possible among settlers who would occupy and develop it. Only recently has the importance of preserving what is left of the public lands for the benefit of the country at large been recognized and steps taken to withdraw forest, coal, oil and other mineral lands and sites on which water power may be developed. As a result of the conservation movement a considerable portion of this area has been temporarily withdrawn from settlement, the total withdrawals exclusive of small tracts withdrawn for military reservations, lighthouse stations, etc., amounting to 294,000 acres. The withdrawn area includes, of course, the national forests, which aggregate approximately 193,000,000 acres, of which 66,000 acres are in Porto Rico.

The following table shows the area of the public domain by states and territories on July 1, 1909: Area unappropriated and unreserved.