Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-05-17
THE FRENCH FISH CONVENTION.

0S
The French are seriously proposing a
grand Fish Convention to exhibit the finest
specimens of all sorts Of fish for inspection,
and to report upon the best modes Of pro-
ducing the same. France is ahead, prob
ably of the whole world, in the science
and art of p%ropagating fish, and carrying
them into practice, so that large quantities
Of the finest fish in the London market are
imported from that country. Great enter
prise is discovered in the French methods
of planting fish, and preserving them in
every river in France, and there is much
to learn as to the finer breeds from these
operations. The subject should be an in
teresting one with US.
There is no doubt but that America is
the old uorI as to its fishes, and not the
new world. We have the gar, pike, and
Others Of that class in Lake Superior, still
existing in our waters, which have long
since been swept away from those'of Eu-
rope, but which used to exist there under
former coalitions Of the globe, showing, so
far, that this continent has been less dis
turbed by the causes that have swept the
older fishes away. II N. Agassiz gets
home from Brazil in time, he should be a
delegate to this Fish Convention. His
discovery Of whole families of fishes found
nowhere else on the globe. with six or
seven hundred new species, have opened
his eyes to some entirely new facts in re-
gard to the structure Of fshes-the archi-
tecural ideas, so to speak, or which the
whole tribe Of these most ancient creatures
have been constructed. Whether the
fishes Of the Amazon have been, like those
Lake Superior, less distributed, and are,
therefore, better illustrations Of the older
types Of fishes, we do not yet know. Or
whether, under a tropical sun, the princi-
pie of life has been more vigorous and
active; whether the smaller fish have
grown to a larger size, just as what are
now ferns were in q warmer period giants
of the forest; whether development has
been more active, and Darwin's theory Of
variation by natural selection has been
illustrated and confirmed, Professor Agas-
siz will be able now to tell US better.
Or II, on the other hand, he is confirmed
in the idea Of a multitude Of specific crea-
tons adapted to each locality, it would
still be interesting to know whether these
new species are more or less complicated
in their structure, whether. in fact, they
are pioneer species, illustrating ideas which
have yet got to be ful6lled-prophess Of
the Of the future fishes Of the rivers Of the
earth; or whether they develop certain
stages Of the past as we suspect, illustras-
ing the various steps Of progress through
which the present races have reached their
higher position ; all Of these points will be
illustrated through the recent labors Of
Professor Agassiz, and any truly scientific
European convention, bringing together
illustrative specimens from all parts Of
Europe, would no doubt aid him in eluci-
dating his thoughts and discoveries to the
world and supplying him with an appre-
ciatins and intelligent body Of scientific
auditors.
Besides, q great deal Of practical good
may be done by the proposed French Con-
ven,ion. Many Of our most valuable fish,
cries are dying out, owing. to gross bad
management. We have thinned out the
whales on both sides Of Jul coast /; steam
boats are frightening the fish from our
and the saw-mills, in the interim,
are doing the same work. But we have
s,ill an immense huvial system, in which
ashes adapted would thrive and flourish.
The English "na,ive" oyster, though
often coppery in favor, and far smaller
in size than ours, would be an agreeable
variety to try in certain grounds on this
side Of the Atlantic, while we could not
only show them larger and finer living
species, but from the geological strata Of
California, Alabama and other places,
could furnish them with a regular series
Of ascending grades of oyster shells tina.
might easily help to illustrate the history
of the development of this bivalve from i,s
earliest appearance in the seas of our
planet to their present state.