FISHERY PRODUCTS IN EVERYDAY LIFE 27 



took refuge on the barren islands of the lagoons. 

 Here they had little food except fish ^ and no min- 

 erals but salt and sand. The Venetians learned to 

 catch fish in the sea and to preserve them with salt 

 prepared from sea-water. Their fishing-smacks grew 

 into fleets and navies, and soon Venetian vessels 

 dominated the sea. 



The Hanseatic League, the powerful confedera- 

 tion of commercial cities about the Baltic, owed its 

 rise largely to the herring which its fishermen caught 

 in the Baltic. But early in the fifteenth century the 

 herring migrated to the North Sea, from which 

 they did not return. This brought the fall of the 

 Hanseatic League, and the rise of the Dutch and 

 British sea-power. 



Fisliing rights have always been a source of inter- 

 national rivalry and disputes, and have caused many 

 wars. Great Britain's navy was started by Charles I 

 to keep the Dutch from fishing in what were claimed 

 as British waters. This led to a long war between 

 the English and Dutch, and to a conflict of interna- 

 tional law which was finally settled by allowing the 

 freedom of the seas beyond the three-mile limit. Thus 

 it is possible to trace the present-day discussion of 

 the three-mile or the twelve-mile limit to the early 

 fishery disputes. 



In ancient and medieval times, the fisheries were 

 relatively more important than they are to-day. 

 Although the quantity of fish taken w^as much 

 smaller, the human race was more dependent upon 



^ E. E. Slosson in "Industrial and Engineering Chemistry," Vol. 

 XVI (1924), pp. 447-450. 



