376 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
may find their way north of it during the summer season. This ice-line 
is the southern line reached in mid-winter by the fioating ice, and 
it forms the northern boundary of many southern animals, as well as 
the southern limit of many arctic forms, not only of fish, but of other 
animals, and of plants. The distribution of the cod, east and west, 
north of latitude 50° north, is only limited by the line of the coasts of 
Asia and America. The shallow waters of the Ochotsk Sea were 
noted for their cod fisheries before the Alaska fishing grounds were 
open to American enterprise, and have only been less frequented since 
the latter, more easy of access and provided with numerous safe harbors 
of refuge in stormy weather, have come under our jurisdiction. 
The time of reaching the peninsula of Kamehatka, according to Mz. 
Davidson, who has collected many facts in regard to the North Pacific 
cod fishery, is about the 1st of July; but good, small fish may be taken 
as early as the ist of June in the Kurile Strait. At this date, fish 
are not found on the west coast of the peninsula. In July fish may be 
taken in moderate quantities on the southeast side of Cape Lopatka, 
the southern extremity of Kamchatka, and in the western part. of 
the Kurile Strait; but the best fishing grounds commence about forty 
miles northwest from Cape Lopatka. Here, at the beginning of the sea- 
son, the fishery is near the shore, but it is twenty to twenty-five miles 
from land in latitude 52° 30’ north to latitude 53° north. On this 
ground they are usually taken in twenty-five to thirty fathoms of water, 
though they are found in sixteen fathoms within three miles of the 
land. They are also caught eighteen to twenty miles from shore, in 
depths from forty-five to sixty fathoms, according to latitude. 
When the fish first come upon the west coast of Kamchatka, about 
the first of July, they are thin and poor, but improve rapidly. Fish 
taken here two weeks after their arrival on the ground are alittle larger 
than those taken on the coast of Labrador, but not so large as those 
taken on the Grand and other off-shore banks in the North Atlantic. 
in quality they compare very favorably with the latter. For bait the 
vessels have taken salt herring from San Francisco; some have carried 
fresh herring, from Petropavlovsk, in snow and ice; others have used the 
small halibut caught on the cod banks. 
4n 1866 about fifteen vessels sailed for the Ochotsk. Vessels should 
leave San Francisco as early as March, arriving upon the grounds in 
April, and leaving the banks for San Francisco in September. The 
most fruitful of the Alaska fishing grounds are considerably to the 
north of the southern limit of the migrations of the cod, and may be 
said to extend northwest from Yakutat or Bering Bay along the coast 
and the line of the Kadiak and Aleutian archipelagoes. The cod-banks 
are generally in the vicinity of land, yet off-shore banks have been and 
will continue to be discovered, though the fishermen endeavor to retain 
the secret of such discoveries. Such banks are usually to be looked for 
in the direction of the trend of the adjacent islands or in lines parallel 
to that trend. The soundings of Portlock, Vancouver, and the 
United States Coast Survey expedition prove the existence of a com- 
paratively shoal bank extending along the southeastern coast of Afog- 
nak and Kadiak, with a deep pocket (no bottom at ninety fathoms) 
twenty-five miles east of St. Paul. The shoalest water found upon this 
bank, by Mr. Davidson, of the United States Coast Survey, was forty- 
five fathoms. It probably extends along the southeast shore of Kadiak. 
Belcher caught cod and halibut under Cape Greville, the eastern point 
of Kadiak. South by east, fourteen miles from the eastern end of the 
easternmost point of the Trinity Islands, Vancouver found bottom at 
