14 



Those interested in the long-line fishery, with which the 

 trawl competed most directly and most successfully, joined 

 in the outcry, and the complaint was pressed most strongly 

 upon the attention of the Royal Commission appointed to 

 inquire into the Sea Fisheries of the United Kingdom in 

 1863. That Commission failed to be convinced by the 

 arguments brought against the use of the trawl, and most 

 wisely declined to interfere with it. Their action has 

 since been most unexpectedly and most completely justified 

 by a discovery made by Professor Sars, who, while investi- 

 o-atins' the condition of the cod-fisheries off the west coast 

 of Norway, found that the eggs of the cod were not 

 deposited at the bottom of the ocean, like those of the 

 herring, but floated freely on the surface of the water, 

 where it is obviously impossible for a net, dragging along 

 the bottom of the sea, to affect them in the slightest degree. 

 It has since been shown that the eggs of the haddock 

 — which belongs to the same family as the cod — and of 

 the mackerel — which belongs to an entirely different ^'"t'/z/zj- — 

 also float on the surface, and the case against the trawl 

 therefore, as destructive of the spawn of these three fish at 

 least, has been completely disposed of It has been dis- 

 posed of in an equally satisfactory manner as regards the 

 herring, by the enormous increase which has taken place in 

 the yield of the herring fisheries, the number of barrels of 

 herrings cured in Scotland alone having steadily increased 

 from 130,000 barrels a year in the early years of the 

 century, till it now exceeds 1,000,000 barrels a year. 



But within the last few years, instead of .having to rely 

 on the wind for their means of propulsion, many trawling 

 vessels have been fitted with steam-engines, rendering them 

 independent of wind and tide, and increasing many times 

 their fishing power. The employment of steam has revived 



