BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 369 



Vol. VI, i%o. 24. W.-ft»MBagtoii, D. C. Dec. 31, 1886. 



lia.— XOTES ON AN INVESTIGATION OF THE OREAT FI.SHINQ 

 BANKS OF TME WESTERN ATLi ANTIC* , 



By J. T^\ COLLITJS. 



[Abstract.] 



This report covers a trip of twenty-niue days, made in pursuance of 

 instructions from the Commissioner to accompany the Albatross, as fish- 

 ery expert, to the great fishing banks off the coast of Xorth America. 



On June 19, soundings were taken over the region of the two posi- 

 tions assigned to Hope Bank on the charts (about latitude 41° 25' north, 

 longitude 03^ 15' west), proving that there is no such bank, or even an 

 upheaval of the ocean bed in this vicinity, as a depth of about 2,000 

 fathoms was uniformly found, under favorable conditions for sounding 

 and determining the ship's exact position. This disproves the exist- 

 ence of what for several years has been a source of speculation to many 

 Xew England fishermen, and has occasionally caused a loss of time to 

 those that searched for it.t 



The next objective point was the position of certain reported " dan- 

 gers to navigation," laid down on the charts as " rocks awash," at vary- 

 ing distances to the southward of the southern extremity of the Grand 

 Bank of Xewfouudland. The whole of the 21st, and the following night 

 and morning, were spent in searching for these " rocks," and the re- 

 searches proved that no such '' dangers" existed, as depths of about 

 3,000 fathoms were found where these '•'rocks" were marked on the 

 charts.t The results of such searches are of considerable practical 

 value to fishermen. 



Early on the morning of June 23, we began dredging with the beam- 

 trawl in 523 fathoms, about 15 miles to the southward of the southern 

 extremity of the Grand Bank, and dredgings were made at regular in- 

 tervals between that position and the bank, while later in the day many 

 dredgings were made on the bank itself. Perhaps the most important 

 catch of the day, from the standpoint cf a fisherman j was the haul made 

 on the bank in 51 fathoms (latitude 43^ 08' north, longitude 50° 40' 



* These notes relate to researches made clnrinj; a cruise of the U. S. Fish Commission 

 steamer Albatross, from Jane 17 to July 16, 1885, with the object of investigating 

 the fauna and fishing grounds of the chain of great ocean banks between Cape Cod 

 and Newfoundland. An account of this cruise, with tables of dredgings and trawl- 

 iugs, and of fishing stations, is given in Capt. Z. L. Tanner's Report on Work of the 

 Albatross, in the Fish Commission Report for 1885, p. 27 et seq. 



t See Fish Commission Bulletin for 1885, p. 466. 



tThis is what is referred to in Captain Tanner's Report (p. 28) as Watson's Rock. 

 Bull. U. S. F. C. 188G 24 



