352 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
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seaward, the boats then cause it to sweep a curve and gradually 
bring the one end to the other, they then make the haul, and often 
enclose a number of fish sufficient to fill many boats. 
The Norwegian boats carry about sixty nets, some fifty yards 
long, and eight or nine deep; these are cast at night and taken up 
in the morning, twenty or thirty are strung together, buoys are 
attached to the upper side of the net, and heavy stones to the 
other. Upon some of the buoys the name of the owner is painted. 
The English boats are clipper built and constructed with wells in 
the hold, so as to preserve the fish alive; they cost some 41,500 
each, and are manned by ten or twelve men; each of the men 
has a line fifty fathoms long, to which are fastened at different 
places along the line, one hundred hooks, baited with mussels or 
pieces of herring. On arriving at the fishing ground, a float 
carrying a flag-staff six feet high, is heaved overboard, and is kept 
in its place by a line called the “ pow-line,” which reaches to the 
bottom of the sea, where it is held either by a stone or a grapnel ; 
the lines are then fastened to each other, and the end of the long 
line made fast to the float. As the boat sails, the men pay out; 
when the whole length is in the water, they return to the flag- 
staff, and haul in the line. Very often eight hundred fish have 
been found on the eight hundred hooks. 
Almost anything will do to bait for cods; they are most 
voracious. Their chief food, however, is the capelan, a little fish 
which descends in the spring from the north seas. Shoals of cod 
charge amongst them, and in their terror the capelans even rush 
on shore. The Newfoundland people catch them, and carry them 
to St. Pierre, where the fishers come in for fresh bait. Some 
of the cod-fish are carried to England, and to the ports from 
which their smacks hail, but the greater portion are cured at 
Newfoundland. St. Pierre and the Miquelon Islands are granted 
to the French for this purpose, on the condition that they build no 
fortifications, and that they afford no rendezvous for the French 
fleet. The capital, St. John’s, is the resort of the English boats. 
The fish are opened, the interior cleaned out, the liver being 
put on one side. The opened fish have the vertebra taken out, 
and then they are salted, being placed in vats covered in salt 
and submitted to pressure; when taken from the vats they are 
