154 THE WEALTH OF THE SEA 



Columbus set forth on his eventful voyage. Norway 

 is a cold mountainous country in which agriculture 

 is carried on only with the greatest difficulty. For 

 this reason the Norwegians since the earliest times 

 have obtained a large part of their food from the 

 sea. Twenty-five thousand fishing-vessels now sail or 

 steam to and from Norwegian ports. Every year 

 they catch about a billion pounds of fish, consisting 

 chiefly of cod and herring. 



The United Kingdom leads the world in ocean 

 fishery, with a tremendous annual catch of more 

 than a million tons, approximately two thirds of 

 which is made up of herring, haddock, and cod. In 

 191S more than six hundred thousand tons of her- 

 ring were caught by the British. Assuming that the 

 average herring weighed six tenths of a pound and 

 was ten inches in length, we see that this catch in- 

 cluded two billion fish. 



Canada and Newfoundland are close to some of 

 the world's richest fishing grounds. The Grand 

 Banks, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Bay of 

 Fundy yield large quantities of valuable fish. Fur- 

 ther, British Columbia possesses important salmon 

 fisheries and is near the important Alaskan banks. 

 The Canadian fisheries yield about two hundred 

 million pounds of cod and an .equal quantity of 

 herring, nearly a hundred million pounds of salmon, 

 and in addition large quantities of halibut, haddock, 

 mackerel, pollack, hake, and cusk. 



Germany, France, Holland, and Sweden also 

 possess important herring and cod fisheries. The 

 German fishermen catch considerable quantities of 



