174 ON THE ECONOMICAL USES OF FISHES. 



is regarded by many, and we think with justice, as 

 a delightful pastime, the source of much enjoyment. 

 To enumerate merely, all, or even the greater 

 part of those fishes which are used as food by man, 

 would be a task not easily to be accomplished ; we 

 shall, therefore, and in strict accordance with the title 

 at the beginning of this chapter, confine our obser- 

 vations to a few of the most important in an econo- 

 mical point of view. Accordingly, we may begin 

 with the cod, as it is, perhaps, upon the whole, the 

 most important. 



Before the discovery of the immense supply of 

 cod to be found on the northern coasts of America, 

 the principal fishery was carried on off the coasts of 

 Iceland and Norway, as well as the Orkney, Shet- 

 land, and Western Islands. A great part of the cod 

 taken on our own shores is eaten in a fresh state, 

 and vessels have been constructed in which the fish 

 are brought alive from a considerable distance, to 

 supply the markets of our large cities, especially 

 the metropolis. But it is on the great banks of 

 Newfoundland and Labrador that the cod fishery is 

 carried on to its greatest extent, by the Americans, 

 British, and French, but especially the former. Here 

 the cod is found in immense shoals, and indeed this 

 is hardly to be wondered at, when we consider that 

 nine millions of eggs have been found in the roe of 

 a single individual of this species. A few years ago, 

 it was calculated, that about ten thousand British 

 seamen were employed in the Newfoundland fish- 

 eries, independently of perhaps an ec^ual number on 



