CHAPTER IX. 



POTENTIALITIES, 



jANY and various are the potentialities of the Great Barrier Reef of 

 Australia. They are associated, practically, with every one of the 

 several fishing industries described in the preceding chapters, and 

 include numerous subjects hitherto untouched. 



Beginning with the latent resources of Queensland's — or in its 

 restricted sense, the Barrier's — marvellous fish-fauna, they present 

 almost unlimited possibilities of profitable development. As shown 

 in the preceding chapter, its waters abound with shoals of fish akin 

 to the European herring, mackerel, anchovy, and pilchard, which up to the present date have 

 been literally allowed to run to waste. And yet, with these indigenous supplies swarming 

 at their doors, Queensland and all the neighbouring Australian colonies import vast stores 

 of tinned, smoked, and salted fish, from the lordly salmon to the lowly sprat, from Europe and 

 America. The sapid sardine — the " stand-by " and sine qua uoii of every settler's station, prospect- 

 ing camp, or yachting cruise — represents, in large measure, English sprats, caught and tinned 

 at Deal, on the Kentish coast, sent over to France to be branded, and thence reimported and 

 distributed the world over as primest French sardines. The sardine, as a specific form of fish, 

 possesses no real existence. At its best, it is but the young of the European pilchard, 

 Clttpea pilchardits, the equal, and in some opinions the superior, of which exists in the vast 

 shoals of Cliipea sagax and C. siindaica in Queensland waters. The garfishes, Hemirhamphi, cele- 

 brated for the delicacy of their flavour, and represented, as already shown, by numerous 

 species procurable in bulk, would undoubtedly, if tinned a la sardine, command a ready 

 sale. 



The so-called king-fish, or giant mackerel, Cybiiun coinmcrsonii, belonging to the mackerel 

 tribe, and occurring in shoals in the northern districts of the Barrier, is as well-suited as 

 the British mackerel or its near ally, the Mediterranean tunny, for smoking, salting, and other 

 methods of conservation. The schnappers, sea-breams, and so-called rock-cods (Serrani) that 

 abound in endless varieties throughout the Barrier district, are equally eligible for such a 



