THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 173 
used, of course, as food in the different modes of preparation. Particular parts are 
used as food, other than the muscles. The sounds are used as food, converted into 
gelatine, and in the form of isinglass. They serve a great variety of purposes. The 
roes are used as food, and bait for fish. The skin is tanned for leather and clothing. 
A great many nations dress very largely in the skins of cod andsalmon. And the fish 
is dried and used as food ‘for cattle in Iceland and Norway. The bones are used as 
fuel in some places; and, of course, the oil is used for medicine, and for the various 
purposes to which animal oils are applied. There is scarcely any part that is not 
valuable. The offal, in Norway, is converted into a valuable manure. Every part is 
called into play. 
Q. The bones ?—A. They are burned as fuel, as well as eaten by dogs, or converted 
into fertilizers. 
Q. It is not, probably, applied in the United States to all the uses you have speci- 
fied ?—A. No; I don’t think the skin is used as clothing in the United States, but it 
makes an admirable leather for shoes, and makes very nice slippers. We have in 
Washington quite a large number of articles made from the skins, as used in Alaska, 
the Aleutian Islands, and in Siberia. 
Q. You think they can be used ?—A. Ihave no doubt in the course of years the skin 
will be utilized very largely. In fact, I may remark, that at the late exhibition at 
the Westminster Aquarium, among the special articles exhibited were shoes made 
from leather of the codfish, furnished by an exhibitor from Christiania. 
Q. You think it is the foremost fish ?—A. Ithinkit is. There is none that furnishes 
so important an industry or which is so abundantly or widely disseminated. 
Q. What is the geographical distribution of the cod ?—A. There are quite anum- 
ber of species of the cod, some characterized by certain peculiarities and some by 
others. The cod in the North Pacificis different from that in the North Atlantic. 
Both are, however, codfish, and no one could mistake them for anything else but cod. 
In the Atlantic the cod are found on the American side from the Winter Quarter 
Shoals, on the coast of Virginia; that is the must southern point I have traced it to; 
from that indefinitely to the northward. It is found everywhere upon the coast, in 
the Bay of Fundy, the Bay of Saint Lawrence, off Labrador and Newfoundland, on 
the Grand Bank, and many other places. The European species, although by some 
considererd distinct from ours, probably have a geographical range equally extensive. 
I believe they are not in Spitzbergen. 
’ Q. What is the most important locality 7—A. Probably the most important single 
locality that furnishes the greatest amount of fish with the least possible labor in the 
_shortest possible time is that in the vicinity of the Lofoden Islands, on the northwest 
coast of Norway. Thatis aregion where usually twenty-five millions of fish are taken 
in three months by some twenty-five thousand men. The Dogger Bank, in the North 
‘Sea, is another European locality. In America the most extensive stores of cod are 
found, I suppose, on the Grand Bank and the George’s. They are found, perhaps, 
also on the great banks off the coastof Labrador, 20 or 30 miles off the coast, extend- 
ing for hundreds of miles. 
Q. Now give the Commission some notion of the abundance of codfish.—A. Well, 
I have covered that point in my reply to the previous question. Itis found in the 
greater part of those regions at some portion of the year. It is usually more abun- 
dant in the spring or summer, autumn or winter, in each locality, in numbers only to 
be measured by the ability of man to capture. 
Q. What do you say of their migrations ?—A. The cod is a fish the migrations of 
which cannot be followed readily, because it is a deep-sea fish and does not show on 
the surface as the mackerel and herring; but so far as we can ascertain, there is a 
partial migration; at least some of the fish don’t seem to remain in the same localities 
the year round. They change their situation in search of food, or in consequence of 
the variations in the temperature, the percentage of salt in the water, or some other 
cause. In the south of New England, south of Cape Cod, the fishing is largely off- 
