ON ARTIFICIAL REFRIGERATION. 961 



barrels of iced bait, chiefly menhaden in summer and herring in the 

 colder weather. The herring are brought from Nova Scotia and New- 

 foundland, where they are bought frozen at the rate of 30 cents to $1 

 per hundred. Probably thirty voyages are made from Gloucester each 

 winter for the purpose of gettmg these fish. Mr. Goode has not at hand 

 an estimate of the quantity brought in each cargo, but it cannot well be 

 less than 100,000 herring. The quantity thus brought in amounts to 

 between three and four millions of herring, for which at least $15,000 

 are paid. Canada alone, exclusive of Newfoundland, sent in 1S7G to 

 the United States 4,301,000 pounds of herring (fresh), valued at $53,989. 

 Besides the fish brought in the winter, a large quantity of herring are 

 bought on the coasts of Newfoundland by the Grand Bank fleet, of which 

 Gloucester has nearly 100 vessels. These vessels require for a season's 

 fishing something like 100 barrels each of fresh bait. This they hnj at 

 the rate of about $2 a barrel, or somewhat more when they take them 

 in frozen for the first spring trip. The necessity of going into port for 

 bait uses up certainly half of the time of their four months' absence, 

 besides which each vessel pays out from $200 to $500 for bait. 



Mr. Goode estimates that Gloucester pays something like $40,000 

 annually for 20,000 to 25,000 barrels of herring. These herring and 

 other fish, like the alewives, closely resembling them, occur in immense 

 schools on the Atlantic coast during cold weather. The whole demand 

 of Gloucester would doubtless be supplied by 120,000 to 200,000 barrels 

 offish, or perhaps 25,000,000 to 50,000,000 fish, frozen in such a manner 

 as always to be available for use as bait. These fish, Mr. Goode says, if 

 packed solid would occupy a space, approximately of 30,000 to 50,000 

 cubic feet. If proved good for bait, from 50 cents to $1 would readily 

 be obtained per barrel. 



The nature and extent of the bait-preser^ing question may likewise 

 be inferred from the following note by Mr. J. K. Smidtli.* In his paper 

 on the Fisheries among the ancient Greeks and Eomans, he states, after 

 Oppian, that the "lycostome" (a sort of herring) were the best bait for 

 catching the ''^sargus." As soon as a certain quantity has been thrown 

 into the water they came in large swarms to eat it, and the fishermen then 

 seized the opportunity to enclose them in their nets, and thus frequently 

 caught large numbers. This use of bait, Mr. Smidth remarks, "in net- 

 fishing, reminds us of the sardine-fisheries on the coast of Brittany, as 

 carried on in our time. But here the roe of the codfish is used as a 

 bait for the sardines. To give an idea of the enormous quantity of roe 

 used for sardine-fishing, he mentions that 30,000 kegs of roe are ex- 

 ported annually from Norway to France. Each of these kegs contains 

 about 140 kilograms, making a total of about 4,500,000 kilograms, or 

 about 9,000,000 pounds, valued at about 3,000,000 francs. Several 

 owners of large fisheries have assured me that the buying of this roe 

 deprives them of half the profits of their sardine-fisheries." 



* United States Commissiouer of Fish and Fislieries Report, Part III, 1876, p. 7. 

 61 p 



