98 THE COD 



incubation in any case weaken the larvae when they hatched 

 out ? It is to be hoped that the Canadian Government will 

 follow the eggs downstream and find out answers to these 

 questions. But a cruise of thirty days will obviously be very 

 much too short for the purpose ! 



It may seem that this inquiry could be of no practical interest 

 to fishermen on this side of the Atlantic, for, off the Norwegian 

 coast, the eggs would have to drift very far North in a normal 

 year before they reached water as cold as 41° F. ; and even at 

 that temperature they would hatch out in sixteen days.^ But 

 it remains to be seen whether in abnormal years the freezing 

 of the sea farther south than the normal southerly limit of the 

 sea ice might not produce disastrous results on baby cod, and 

 in this direction the Canadian inquiries might be of incalculable 

 benefit. 



» Depths of Ocean, p. 227. 



