3-052-621 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Agricultural Museum, Berlin, where the International Fisheries Exhibition is held, 1880. 'This exhibition...is very extensive and various, both as regards the interesting collection of living fish, and that of many descriptions of fishing-tackle, which have been gathered from all parts of the world, and the great variety of smoked, preserved, and tinned fish. China, Japan, Holland, Germany, America, England, Russia, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Austria-Hungary are all more or less represented. It is, in fact, as the Commissioner of the United States remarked, "a union of all nations of the earth in a comparative and competitive display of the wealth of their rivers, lakes, and seas, and the ingenuity with which the inhabitants of the waters are laid under contribution to furnish food, clothing, and ornament for mankind." It must be confessed, however, that the British department is quite inadequate; there is no attempt, indeed, to represent the immense marine fisheries belonging to this country...there is very little of interest in the British portion; in fact, almost our whole show is contained in a room some 25 feet square, which is about one fourth of the space that was allotted to us'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.