214 THE WEALTH OF THE SEA 



Fish-Oils 



Fish-oil has long been considered an unpleasant 

 subject of conversation. Dark of color and foul of 

 odor, it formerly reminded one of unsightly back 

 alleys strewn with rotten garbage and decaying fish. 

 The research chemist has taken the putrid odor 

 from fish-oil, but its evil reputation has stuck. 

 Despite the fact that paints prepared with refined 

 fish oil can scarcely be identified by their odor, it 

 is difficult to sell to the general public paints known 

 to contain fish-oil. It is possible, by chemical processes 

 invented during the past few years, to make fish- 

 oils into light-colored, sweet-smelling oils or into 

 solid white fats resembling lard or tallow. A given 

 sample of fish-oil may be made into beautiful white 

 "wax" candles, or into soft edible lard-like fat. Or, 

 if you prefer, the chemist can bleach the oil and 

 destroy its odor without changing its properties. 



Fish-oils are obtained from the entire bodies of 

 certain fatty fish. By far the most important of these 

 is the menhaden, which is also known as the pogy, 

 hardhead, hardhead shad, bony-fish, whitefish, moss- 

 bunker, bunker, chebog, marshbanker, alewife, old- 

 wife, bug-shad, bughead, fat-back, shiner, and her- 

 ring. Its average length is from ten to twelve inches, 

 and it usually weighs nearly a pound. Menhaden are 

 caught in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic 

 coast of the United States as far north as Massa- 

 chusetts. Formerly the fishery extended as far north 

 as Maine, but in recent years sufficient fish have not 

 been caught there to justify a fishery. As the men- 



