368 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



primitive tribes) it is obvious that by far the greater part of all vegetation 

 escapes conversion into any form of animal life; a small part is eaten by 

 insects and their larvae, by grazing animals, rodents, and birds, but most of 

 it is degraded by molds and bacteria into humus, and eventually oxidized 

 into inorganic substance, or else formed into peat, lignite, or coal. At sea, it 

 also appears probable that most of the vegetation fails to enter the animal 

 chain, but decomposes in the water and returns to the fertilizer cycle, or 

 sinks to the bottom and there decomposes or is converted to petroleum, while 

 of that small part which is transformed into animal life, the greater part 

 assumes forms not useful to man. 



Comparative Production of Principal Fishing Regions of the World. Com- 

 parison of the fish production of the North American continent and its 

 component parts with that of the North Sea, all of northwestern Europe, and 

 the Far East, indicates that waters of the Western Hemisphere are relatively 

 lightly fished in comparison with those of other parts of the world, and that 

 the more heavily fished waters of the older fisheries are themselves continu- 

 ing to yield larger quantities than ever, insofar as statistics are available for 

 comparison with prior years. 



Table ii has been constructed for such comparisons. For example, the 

 North Sea alone, having 210,000 square miles of bottom, less than one- 

 third the area of the Gulf of Mexico, produced (on the average of 1936- 

 37-38) of herring 6.4 tons; non-herring 2.3 tons; all fish 8.7 tons per square 

 mile, a total of 2,846 million pounds, or 63 per cent as much fish as the entire 

 United States and Alaska, including all fresh water fisheries; and 45 per cent 

 as much fish as the entire North American continent, in both oceans and 

 fresh water, Mexico, Newfoundland, St. Pierre, Miquelon, Canada, and 

 Alaska. 



In the North Sea, the volume of production of the last four pre-war years 

 (1935-38) was the largest for any consecutive four years of record, although 

 this sea has been fished for centuries, intensively for the past fifty years and 

 with little benefit of regulatory legislation. While the production of bottom 

 living fishes as a whole declined, some of the bottom species declining appar- 

 ently to the point of diminishing returns, the increase in the herring fisheries 

 more than compensated, so that the yield of the sea as a whole was at a 

 record level. 



The entire North American continent, fresh and salt water, both oceans 

 and the Gulfs of Mexico and California, produces only 70 per cent as much 

 fish as the single-ocean fisheries of northwestern Europe from Gibraltar to 

 the Arctic, but exclusive of Spain and Soviet Russia.*^ It produces only 82 



42. For which two countries the figures for the Atlantic Ocean production are not separately 

 available. For Spain, Atlantic and Mediterranean in 1940 the production was 967 million pounds 

 (FAO, 194s). 



