138 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
2 
years. ‘To restore it to softness and flexibility it is only neceasary to 
plunge it three or four days into fresh water. In time it acquires the 
hardness of wood, and the fatty portions have a tallowy odor. 
Smoking.—A remaining method of preserving fish for food, if not for 
bait, is that of smoking, which has been used from time immemorial. 
This consists merely in exposing the flesh, either fresh or after being 
salted to some degree, to the smoke produced by burning bark or wood. 
This changes the texture of the fiber apparently by the action of pyro- 
ligneous acid or some creosote product, at the same time preserving it 
and giving it a very agreeable taste. The celebrated Finmark haddies 
consist of the haddock slightly smoked to a moderate degree, not enough 
to keep them for a long time, but involving a Jess amount of salt and of 
smoking than usual. Other fish, of course, are readily prepared in the 
same way. 
G.—DISPOSITION OF OFFAL OR ** GURRY.” 
The question of a convenient or economical disposition of the offal of 
fish, especially of the heads and entrails, is a serious matter to the fish- 
erman, especially when the cleaning or preparation for market is con- 
ducted at sea. This waste matter constitutes a large percentage of the 
entire mass (about a third), and what is thrown away every year by 
fishermen of any considerable fishing station may amount to hundreds 
of tons. Men fishing in small boats, however, usually have no other 
convenient alternative. 
The objections made to this disposition of offal are of two classes, one 
on the score of waste, the other on the ground that the capture of fish 
in that locality is greatly interfered with. In the same connection I 
may refer to the question of waste of fish by means of the trawl-line, or 
the purse and gill net. As already mentioned, a severe complaint 
brought in North America against the apparatus referred to, is that 
large numbers of fish are lost from the trawl-line or from the nets in 
consequence of storms or otherwise; and that apart from the waste, 
these fish falling to the bottom, contaminate the fishing-grounds by 
their decomposition and drive other fish away, as shown by the ina- 
bility to make successful catches until after a period sufficient to allow 
this matter to be decomposed or removed in some manner. 
The assertions of injury to the fishing-grounds in consequence of the 
gurry being thrown overboard or of the number of dead fish dropping 
from the lines or partly devoured by other fishes, apply most generally 
to the localities of the capture of the Gadidw or members of the cod 
family, especially the true cod, haddock, hake, cusk, as well as of some 
other species, including also the halibut and others of the flat-fish — 
family. It must be remembered, however, that these grounds are al- 
ways in the colder portions of the sea, not unfrequently where the tem- 
perature of the water is but little above the freezing-point of fresh 
water, and always where it is as low as 50°. In regions where such - 
temperatures prevail the year round, the cod and its allies are found — 

