220 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



land, as alluded to in the early part of this description. We 

 may suppose that the Newfoundland fishery is not so con- 

 siderable for the English, as before the rupture with the 

 American colonies, as they now share it with us ; the fisher- 

 men of Boston only taking annually in Massachusetts Bay 

 little more than fifty thousand quintals of cod-fish, and a 

 certain space in North America has also been ceded to the 

 French for the like purpose. In 1785 the fishery was very 

 plentiful for Great Britain, when two hundred and twenty 

 vessels were employed, Pennant assuring us in his Arctic 

 Zoology, that such a quantity of the cheven or chub fish 

 are caught by us off the Dogger-bank and the Wall-bank, 

 as to make us amends for the diminution of the fishery at 

 Newfoundland. 



According to Frazier, the cod appears in great numbers 

 at Chili in the month of November. Admiral Anson says 

 they are prodigiously large, and from the testimony of some 

 of his people who had been at Newfoundland, they assert 

 that they are as plenty there as at Newfoundland itself. 

 Abbe Molina asserts, that the cod fishery is so plentiful on 

 the coasts of Gio-Fernandez, that the same thing may be 

 observed of it as we have remarked on Newfoundland, viz. 

 that fish are drawn as fast as the lines are thrown out.* The 

 cod appears also on the coasts of Valparaiso in the months of 

 October, November, and December, but only in stormy 

 weather; and these people, who formerly set no value on the 

 cod-fish, have within these few years applied themselves to 

 this lucrative branch of trade, and dry annually a great 

 number of these fish ; a Frenchman first, of the name of 

 Luison, set them the example in their country. The cod is 

 not tenacious of life : it dies soon after it is taken out of the 

 sea, or even if put into fresh water. As they are excellent 



* In 1824, on our return to England from the Arctic Regions, we 

 caught one Sunday afternoon upwards of sixty cod-hshes in about half 

 an hour, oft" Iceland. 



