218 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



is generally in three weeks or a month ; but, if a sharp wind 

 blows from the north, this is generally accomplished in three 

 or four days. When there are no rocks and the soil is 

 sandy, they make a bed of stones laid close together, turn- 

 ing the fish downwards upon them, that the inside may be 

 kept from the rain, which would spoil it; then they suffer 

 them to lie in heaps till they find occasion to sell them. The 

 hangefisch is prepared nearly in the same manner ; but with 

 this difference, that the back is cut from without, and split 

 entirely through, on which they are hung on stages of stone ; 

 as these stones are only laid one upon another without any 

 cement, the air has a free passage ; and the whole is 

 covered with boards or grass to keep out the wet. 



The curing of this fish is different among the Norwegians 

 from what it is with the Icelanders, as they use salt. When 

 the heads are cut off and the fish cleaned out, they are put 

 into a large tub with a quantity of French salt ; and a week 

 after they put them into heaps on a kind of grating, to let 

 the blood and brine run off; after this they rub them with 

 Spanish salt, then pack them up tight in casks for sale, 

 under the name of Laberdom ; when only dried on the rocks, 

 they call them " Klipp fische." They split the large ones that 

 the salt may penetrate better, but the small ones have only 

 the belly opened; the latter are called round fish, the 

 former flat fish : when dried on poles, they call them "coth 

 fisch." All these sorts are carried to Bergen, and thence 

 transported to all parts of Europe. The heads are eaten, 

 but when forage is scarce they are given to cattle. The 

 inhabitants of the north dry the heads on the shore, and give 

 them to their cattle mixed with sea-weed : cows fed in this 

 manner we are assured give much more milk than when fed 

 on straw or hay. 



As the air-bladder of this fish is very glutinous, the Ice- 

 landers prepare from it an isinglass not much inferior to that 

 of Russia. The following is the mode they pursue : they 

 leave the back-bones in lumps with the air-bladders attached 



