SALT-WATER FISHERIES OF NORWAY. G89 



but iiotiiing like the " Storegg" could here be discovered. It must like- 

 \vise be meutioued that iu the outer portion of the Sognefiord an exten- 

 sive plateau was discovered with hard stony bottom and sloping both 

 towards the coast and towards the deep (depth from 2G0 to 211 fathoms). 



There can be no doubt that all the above-mentioned places are excel- 

 lent fishing-stations. Wherever at some distance from the coast similar 

 banks are found with hard or stony bottom, there have always been large 

 quantities of fish, and although all attempts made during the expedition 

 to attach a short line and baited hook to the plummet proved fruitless, 

 no negative conclusion must be drawn from this very unpractical method 

 of investigation, which under the circumstances was the only one possi- 

 ble. 



The kinds of fish found on the banks are chiefly ling, cusk, halibut, 

 and large codfish, the so-called bank codfish. Professor Sars has in 

 his former reports to the department expressed his opinion that the so- 

 called bank-codfish is not a different fish from the well-known winter 

 codfish which comes to our coasts in winter and the beginning of spring 

 for the purpose of spawning. The views formerly entertained of the 

 migrations of the codfish from distant seas have been entirely abandoned 

 by the professor, after he had thoroughly studied the nature of this fish, 

 and the experience gained during this expedition has only served to cor- 

 roborate his opinion. According to Professor Sars's opinion, all the cod- 

 fish which visit our coast during the winter and which lorm the object of 

 our most important fisheries are during the rest of the year found only iu 

 that portion of the sea whose bottom forms the barrier towards the outer 

 polar deep as especially the outer side of this barrier (the so-called 

 " Havbro '*) with its richly-developed animal life and the favorable char- 

 acter of its bottom forms a convenient place of sojourn for enormous 

 numbers of codfish. 



It is entirely different with another very important fish, ilie lierring. 

 Here the investigations made by Professor Sars have led him to the 

 opposite view. While the cod is a genuine bottom-fish, and as such de- 

 l)eudent on the nature of the bottom and the different depth of water, 

 the herring is iu its whole characters genuine pelagian fish, and therefore 

 independent of depth of water and the nature of the bottom, but influ- 

 enced by the physical and biological conditions of the water near the 

 surface. As these change a good deal, this kind of fish had to be fur- 

 nished with the means of quickly reaching the most favorable portions 

 of the sea. The herring is therefore distinguished from the cod by its 

 elegant compressed or wedge-shaped form, which enables it to shoot 

 through the water as swift as an arrow and travel long distances in a 

 comparatively short time. 



The professor, although not taking the old-fashioned view that the 

 spring herrings come from the ice-covered sea near the North Pole, in- 

 clines to the opinion that the herring undertakes long and irregular 

 journeys iu the open sea, not only when it comes to the coast for the 

 44 F 



