“No part of the commerce of this country is more important than that carried on in the Pacific Ocean. It is large in amount. Not less than $12,000,000 are invested in and actively employed by one branch of the whale fishery alone; in the whole trade there is directly and indirectly involved not less than fifty to seventy millions of property. In like manner from 170 to 200,000 tons of our shipping, and from 9 to 12000 of our seamen are employed, amounting to about one-tenth of the whole navigation of the Union. Its results are profitable. It is to a great extent not a mere exchange of commodities, but the creation of wealth by labor from the ocean. The fisheries alone produce at this time an annual income of from five to six millions of dollars; and it is not possible to look at Nantucket, New Bedford, New London, Sag Harbor and a large number of other districts upon our Northern coasts, without the deep conviction that it is an employment alike beneficial to the moral, political, and commercial interests of our fellow-citizens.” In a letter from Commodore Downes to the Honorable John Reed, which forms part of the supplement to the report, that experienced officer observes— “During the circumnavigation of the globe, in which I crossed the equator six times, and varied my course from 40 deg. North to 57 deg. South latitude, I have never found myself beyond the limits of our commercial marine. The accounts given of the dangers and losses to which our ships are exposed by the extension of our trade into seas but little known, so far, in my opinion from being exaggerated, would admit of being placed in bolder relief, and the protection of government employed in stronger terms. I speak from practical knowledge, having myself seen the dangers and painfully felt the want of the very kind of information which our commercial interests so much need, and which, I suppose, would be the object of such an expedition as is now under consideration before the committee of Congress to give. * * * * * “The commerce of our country has extended itself to remote parts of the world, is carried on around islands and reefs not laid down in the charts, among even groups of islands from ten to sixty in number, abounding in objects valuable in commerce, but of which nothing is known accurately; no not even the sketch of a harbor has been made, while of such as are inhabited our knowledge is still more imperfect.”