336 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



partnership with regard to the oil. Traversing two oceans, separated 

 by a stormy cape, it reaches its distant destination at hist in tliese north- 

 ern seas, and commences its tardy work, interrnpted by occasional rest 

 and opportunity to refit at the Sandwich Islands. This now will be 

 changed, as the ship sallies forth from friendly harbours near the game 

 which is its mighty chase. 



From the whale fishery I turn to another branch of inquiry. Undoubt- 

 edly there are infinite numbers of fish on this coast; but in order to 

 determine whether they can constitute a permanent and jjrofttable fish- 

 ery, there are at least three different considerations which must not be 

 disregarded : (1) the existence of banks or soundings ; (2) proper climatic 

 conditions for catching and curing the fish; (3) a market. 



1. The necessity of hanlcs or soundings is according to reason. Fish 

 are not caught in the deep ocean. It is their nature to seek the bottom, 

 where they are found in some way by tlie fisherman, armed with trawl, 

 seine, or hook. As among the ancient Romans private luxury provided 

 tanks and ponds for the preservation of fish, so Nature provides banks, 

 which are only immense fish preserves. Soundings attest their existence 

 in a margin along the coast; but it becomes important to know if they 

 actually exist to much extent away from the coast. On this point our 

 information is already considerable, if not decisive. 



The Sea and Straits of Behring as far as the Frozen Ocean have been 

 surveyed by a naval expedition of the United States under Commander 

 John Rogers. From one of his charts now before me it appears that, 

 beginning at the Frozen Ocean and descending through Behring Straits 

 and Behring Sea, embracing Kotzebue Sound, Norton Bay, and Bristol 

 Bay, to the Peninsula of Alaska, a distance of more than 12 degrees, 

 there are constant uninterrupted soundings from 20 to 50 fathoms, thus 

 presenting an immense extent proper in this respect for fishery. The 

 famous Dogger Bank, between England and Holland, teeming with 

 cod and constituting an inexhaustible fishing ground, has 90 fathoms 

 of water. South of Alaska another chart shows soundings along the 

 coast, with a considerable extent of bank in the neighborhood of the 

 Shumagins and Kodiak, being precisely where all the evidence shows 

 the existence of cod. These banks, north and south of Alaska, taken 

 together, according to the indications of the two charts, have an extent 

 unsurx)assed by any other in the world. 



There is another illustration full of instruction. It is a Map 

 86 of the World, in the new work of "Murray on Mammals," " show- 

 ing approxinuitely the 100 fathom line of soundings," prepared 

 from information furnished by the Hydrographic Department of the 

 British Admiralty. Here are all the soundings of the world. At a 

 glance you discern the remarkable line on the Pacific coast, beginning 

 at 40 degrees of latitude and widening constantly in a north-westerly 

 direction; then with a gentle concave to the coast, stretching from 

 Sitka to the Aleutians, which it envelops with a wide margin, and then 

 embracing and covering Behring Straits to the Frozen Ocean; the 

 whole space, as indicated on the map, seeming Uke an immense unbroken 

 sea-meadow adjoining the land, and constituting plainly the largest 

 extent of soundings in length and breadth known in the world, larger 

 even than those of Newfoundland added to those of Great Britain. 

 This map, which has been prepared by a scientific authority, simi)ly in 

 the interest of science, is an unimpeachable and disinterested witness. 

 Actual experience is better authority still. I learn that the i)e()plc of 

 California have already found cod-banks in these seas, and not deterred 

 by distance have begun to gather a harvest. lu 18GG no less than 



