NORTH ATLANTIC FISHING GROUNDS 17 



tion are to be found many gulfs and bays, the nursery 

 of good harbors; in the other few bays occur, and, con- 

 sequently, there are few harbors. The polar current 

 washes the northern coasts with its cold waters, while the 

 Gulf Stream sweeps in undisputed sway off the coast of 

 the United States, tempering the adjacent waters and 

 bringing its northern rival to a full check in the Gulf 

 of Maine. More edible fish, and consequently more valu- 

 able ones, abound in the colder waters; but a greater 

 variety of species is found on the warmer shores. Im- 

 mense areas of submarine banks, the spawning and feeding 

 grounds of edible fish, occur between Newfoundland and 

 Nantucket Island, but grounds of a similar kind are 

 small and scattered to the southward. 



The good harbors of New England and the Provinces 

 have led to a monopoly, in the North, of the shipbuilding 

 of the country, an industry that is of especial value to the 

 successful prosecution of deep-sea fisheries. Nature has 

 designed New England to be the center of the Atlantic 

 fisheries of North America. To the natural influences that 

 have helped to crown her work in this direction with suc- 

 cess, one must not fail to add the indirect influences, 

 the barren condition of the soil of New England and the 

 severity of its winters, which led the early settler upon 

 these shores to go down to the sea in ships to eke out a 

 scanty living. And this tendency to resort to the abun- 

 dance of the ocean's storehouse for food has become well- 

 nigh an hereditary trait with the coast inhabitant of New 

 England. 



Along the southern shore of Long Island Sound, good 

 sea bass grounds occur; scup and "snappers' are caught 

 in most of the bays and harbors of the sound. South of 

 the island the principal regions for fish are Shinnicook 

 Ground, Offshore Fire Island Ground, and Dillberry 

 Ground, all visited by New York smacks fishing for cod- 



