648 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



convinced me that along our soutlivrestern coast there is no deep basin 

 of a nature calculated to form a place of sojourn for the enormous mass 

 of spring-herrings during that part of the jear when they are not near 

 the coast. The whole extent of bottom from the outer fishing-banks to 

 the reef forms a very monotonous plane at an average depth of about 

 150 fathoms, covered everywhere with a thick layer of loose, sticky 

 clay, a jjortion of which in all probability fills the lower depth of water; 

 and this kind of boKom is the least suited for the development of ani- 

 mal life. A careful examination of the specimens of bottom brought up 

 by the sounding-apparatus and the bottom-scraper has fully corroborated 

 this. This whole portion of the sea must be considered a desert where 

 only here and there some animals of a low grade [e. g., worms) eke out 

 a miserable existence. Only where the bottom at a distance of 12-14 

 Norwegian miles from the coast begins to rise toward the reef it grad- 

 ually assumes a difit'ereut character, becoming firmer and more mixed 

 ■with sand ; but even here animal life is not very strongly developed. 

 On the reef itself the bottom chiefly consists of fine brown sand, which 

 is so fine that it is almost impossible to get anything oli' with the bot- 

 tom-scraper. 



From the above it will be clear that the schools of spring herrings 

 which usually spawn on our western coast, cannot i^ossibly, as was 

 formerly supposed, live at the bottom of the deep, immediately outside 

 of the coast waters, but must come from some other place. If one asks 

 "whence these immense schools of fish come which year after year visit 

 the same coasts at the same time, to disappear again without leaving the 

 slightest trace, the answer might be returned that for the present this 

 cannot be decided with absolute certainty ; in fact, not until our ivhole 

 coast has been carefully surveyed, as has been done with regard to its 

 southwestern portion. ,Oue might then expect to find further north the 

 deep basins whence they come. 



It is my opinion, however, that even such an exact knowledge of the 

 bottom along our widely-extended coast would not bring the problem 

 any nearer to a solution. As long as the surveys are made at the same 

 distance from the coast as hitherto, they are still far from those places 

 where the spring-herrings generally stay. All that we can for the pres- 

 ent consider as certain, and which also agrees with the observations 

 made during the fisheries, is this, that the spring-herrings in the south- 

 ern district come from the northwestern part of the ocean, as great 

 schools of herrings have been seen before the beginning of the fisheries 

 in that direction as far as 15 (Norwegian) miles out at sea, and in one 

 case even as far as 20 miles.* The schools of spring-herrings in the 

 northern district (at Kinn) also come from this direction ; and even to 

 the great herring-fisheries in Nordland the same rule seems to a[)ply, 

 which seems self-evident from the successive migration of the fisheries 



*See Boeck's work, " Om Silden," «fec. (ou the herriug, &c.), p. 47. 



