VII.-AN ACCOUNT OF THE FISHERIES OF NORWAY IN 1877. 



By M. Friele.* 



A.— INTRO DUCTION. 



The fisheries of Norway are of considerable importance, whether 

 studied in a general point of view or in the more limited sense of a source 

 of prosperity to Norway alone. The methods employed, which approach 

 nearer jierfection every day, equally deserve our attention. They have, 

 then, a triple interest — commercial, economical, and technical — which 

 we trust will justify the publication of the present notices. Derived 

 from the most competent sources, and resting upon very accurate offi- 

 cial statistics, they will furnish to persons interested in the subject 

 information which can be relied upon as perfectly exact and authentic. 



B.— THE COD-FISHERY. 



The different species of Gadus, or those constituting the family of the 

 codfishes, give rise in Norway to fisheries of varying importance, but 

 under the heading of the codfishery is generally understood the pursuit 

 and capture of the true Gadus morrhua (skrei, cabillaud). 



The inhabitants of Northern Scandinavia, from the most distant 

 period, have applied themselves to this fishery j and at all times where 

 it has been carried on, it has furnished the j)rincipal means of subsist- 

 ence, and is to-day almost the only source of their income. This is 

 all the more true as the cod-fishery is carried on to the greatest extent 

 in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is little developed, 

 and where the population from time immemorial has been accustomed 

 to consider fishing its dominant occupation ; in the north, in fact, agri- 

 culture is extremely unremunerative, and even in the south it furnishes 

 but a secondary revenue. Fishing, too, is carried on in a season when 

 the snow covers everything, when agriculture is necessarily at a stand- 

 still. 



Fishing for cod has, then, a good claim to be considered the principal 

 means of subsistence of the inhabitants; never in the memory of man 

 has it failed for a single year upon the coast of Norway, though this 

 has unfortunately been the case quite frequently with the spring her- 

 ring. It has, of course, like everything in this world, undergone vari- 

 ations ; in certain years, during certain periods, it has been less produc- 

 tive than ordinarily. This was the case in Soudmore from 1714 to 1717, 

 and in 1735, 1760, and 1775. At the latter date fishing failed almost 

 entirely in the Lofifoden Islands. In Finmark (I^orwegian Lapland), too, 



* Notices sur les Pecheriea de la Norw^ge. Impressioa h part du catnlogue special 

 do la Norwfege a I'exposition universelle de 1878 a Paris. Translated by J. Paul Wilson* 



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