424 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



casks, principally codfish, having been filled with cured fish. 

 Few persons realize the fact that the cod-fisheries of Norway 

 are very much more important than those of the United 

 States. Such is, however, the case. In 1868, according to 

 the report of Colonel Cutts, the total number of vessels, large 

 and small, engaged in the sea-fisheries of the United States 

 were scarcely 2000, manned by crews amounting to 28,000. 

 Norway, on the other hand, had 8500 vessels and boats, and 

 38,000 men engaged in the same season. The value of the 

 products gathered, in one season, amounted to about nine 

 millions of dollars ; in the other, to over thirteen millions. 

 Letter of Dr. Beech 



LOFFODEN COD-FISHERY. 



According to a report from the Lofibden Islands, the great 

 cod-fishing ground of Norway, 17,000,000 fish were taken dur- 

 ing the past winter, this number being rather below the aver- 

 age. Twenty thousand men were engaged in the capture of 

 the fish, and in their preparation, and that of the oil and ma- 

 nure made from the offal. 2 A,May, 25, 1872, 350. 



NAMES OF THE CODFISH. 



Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, of Brooklyn, who has devoted much 

 time and attention to historical researches in regard to fishes, 

 as well as other subjects of natural history, has lately written 

 an interesting essay upon the names which have been applied 

 to the codfish in different parts of the world. In this he re- 

 marks that wherever dried codfish, split and stretched on a 

 stick, are known throughout the civilized world, the name 

 that it bears in different regions can be traced, in most cases, 

 directly to this mode of preparation for the market. 



Thus, among the Greeks, the large codfish were called 

 bacchi, from bacchus, a rod. The Latins named the fish ga- 

 dus, from a Sanscrit root, cad or gad, a rod. This root is 

 found in English in goad, and perhaps in cat-o"* -nine-tails. In 

 Gaelic gad and gadan signify a small rod. Among the Ibe- 

 rians the dried codfish was called bacalaos, from baculeum, a 

 small stick. This points to the root of the French baguette, 

 or rod ; bilboquet, the toy known as cup and ball, really stick 

 and ball, and other words. By the Anglo-Saxons the fish was 

 called the cod, from the word gad or goad, a rod ; and by the 



