THE GADl'S MORUHUA. 21J 



Providence in the immense fecundity of this fish ; and in 

 that abundant supply which it affords to the inhabitants of 

 those bleak and frozen climes that are unfit for the produc- 

 tion of grain. " The ichthyophagi of these barren regions," 

 says he, " not only furnish themselves with a substitute for 

 bread, by drying this fish, but send a vast quantity of their 

 surplus stores to the supply of other nations." The numbers 

 and fertility of these fish seem indeed amply to justify the 

 grateful exultations of this writer ; for they are such as will 

 for ever baffle all the efforts of man and the voracity of the 

 inhabitants of the ocean to exterminate their race, at least 

 while they are caught only with hook and line. Leeuenhoek 

 reckons the number of eggs in a middle sized cod to be 

 9,344,000. Brindley reckons them at four millions only ; 

 but even this is sufficient to supply all that can be de- 

 stroyed by fishery, if we consider what quantities spawn 

 every year. 



The mode of preparing the cod-fish for preservation con- 

 sists partly in drying it in the air, partly in salting it, or in 

 both. The first makes what is called in the North stockfish, 

 or dried cod; the second Laberdom, or salted green cod ; a 

 third preparation is called Klipp fisch (rock fish), or white 

 cod. The Icelanders, who get almost their whole food from 

 this fish, take the greatest pains to prevent want by pre- 

 serving it when it is plenty ; they dry it, giving it then the 

 general name of stockfish ; but there are two preparations, 

 one called stockfish split cod, and the other hangefisch. They 

 are prepared in the following manner : when the men have 

 landed their cargo, the women cut off the heads of the fish, 

 open the belly, draw out the stomach, &c, then split the back 

 withinside, and take out the back-bone except the three last 

 vertebrae ; then they boil the heads and eat them fresh, and 

 the men take the gills for bait. They dry the bones, which 

 serve to make fires, or as food for their cattle ; and they 

 make oil from the livers. The fish thus cut up, they spread 

 them on rocks till the wind has thoroughly dried them, which 



