Included are general correspondence and related records comprising letters received, 1870-1881, including those from Livingston Stone, who was in charge of the U.S. Fish Commission activities on the Pacific coast; letters received, 1882-1900, with related registers and alphabetical indexes, 1882-1917; letters sent, 1871-1906, with registers, 1881-94, and alphabetical indexes, 1882-1906; letters sent by Commissioners G. Brown Goode, 1887-88, and Marshall McDonald, 1888-95; and letters sent by the Office of Engineer and Architect, 1886-1906, relating to construction at field stations. The records also include part of the general classified files, 1902-42 (earlier material was drawn into central files established in the Bureau in 1937), relating to comments and criticisms, emergency relief, conservation, black bass and angling, whaling operations, and inspections; station histories, 1875-1931, consisting chiefly of correspondence relating to construction, operation, and termination of field stations; records relating to legislation and legal questions, 1892-1937; records concerning operation of Bureau vessels, 1879-1940; correspondence and other records concerning participation in national and international expositions, 1881-1927, including account books, 1880-1916; records concerning fishways and fish protection on Federal power and irrigation projects, 1919-35, including an earlier project on the Great Falls of the Potomac, 1884-95; and correspondence and other records concerning relations with Canada and Mexico, 1905-37. Records of the Joint Commission Relative to the Preservation of the Fisheries in Waters Contiguous to Canada and the United States, 1893-95; logs of the schooner GRAMPUS 1886-93, the steamer FISH HAWK, 1889, and the PELICAN, 1933, 1937, and 1940; working papers of Statistical Agent Charles H. Lyles, relating to the fishing industry in the Greater New York area, 1935-39; statistical bulletins and tables, 1892-1920; clippings from the DAILY TIMES, Gloucester, MA, 1900-1915 and 1929-37; and references material on trawl fisheries and British fishing, 1912-15. Records of the Deputy Commissioner include general correspondence, 1916-21; records concerning the use of crayfish and eulachon as food, 1903-19, and oil pollution of waters, 1920-23; correspondence and other records concerning the National Research Council, 1917-24; and correspondence and clippings concerning fish cookery, 1923-25. Financial records include a file of "accounts," 1871-1906, consisting chiefly of statements of expenditures under appropriations; "journals," 1871-87, comprising records of disbursements, with alphabetical indexes; statements of account current, 1880-1906; abstracts of disbursements, 1883-1919; "voucher indexes," 1887-1919; a record of disbursements relating to participation in the Tenth Decennial Census, 1879-81; and account books for expositions, 1880-1916.
