AMERICA'S FISHERIES 157 



Iceland, although the French carry on extensive 

 operations on the Newfoundland banks. The banks 

 of the North Sea have furnished immense quantities 

 of fish for more than five hundred years. These 

 banks lie on the Atlantic continental plateau, an 

 extension of the continental shelf, or intermediary 

 ledge between the coast and the great oceanic depths, 

 which extends from the west coast of Spain along 

 the coast of France and to the north, supporting 

 the British Isles. The greatest depth of this great 

 continental shelf is not more than a hundred fath- 

 oms; its average depth is about fifty fathoms. As 

 the water is shallow, the sunlight penetrates to the 

 bottom, so that much of it is covered by an abun- 

 dant growth of marine plants, which aid greatly in 

 the nutrition of large numbers of fish and other 

 marine animals. These vast fishing grounds, 134,000 

 square miles in area, yield enormous quantities of 

 cod, herring, haddock, whiting, flounders, soles, 

 halibut, pollack, ling, plaice, sprat, anchovies, and 

 many other fishes. 



America's ocean fisheries are conducted chiefly on 

 Georges Bank, Brown's Bank, and the Newfound- 

 land banks of the Atlantic, and the Alaskan banks 

 in the Pacific Ocean. The Newfoundland banks are 

 of great area. Fishing-vessels not only from the 

 United States, Canada, Newfoundland, and Labra- 

 dor, but also from France and other European 

 countries come here to reap a bounteous harvest 

 from the sea. The French value these fisheries so 

 highly that they have maintained small colonies at 

 St. -Pierre and Miquelon as bases for the fishing 



