ANDERSSEN, FISHERY EXHIBITION, PHILADELPHIA, 1876. 59 



{Sahno quinnat), but also trout and carp from Germany, and these fish 

 seem to be in as flourishing a condition as in their proper home. A 

 number of practical laws, partly local and partly applying to the whole 

 country, have been made for the better protection and encouragement of 

 the fisheries. 



i^To less than to the development of the river and other fresh-water 

 fisheries, have the Americans given their attention to the improvement 

 of vessels, boats, and implements used in coast and ocean fishing, and a 

 closer examination of this subject shows the high rank to which the 

 American salt-water fisheries have attained. 



The well-known American fishing-schooners, especially the Gloucester 

 mackerel-schooners, are as beautifully constructed and as comfortably 

 arranged and fitted up as a pleasure-yacht, and cost from $6,000 to 

 $10,000 and $12,000, fully equipped, including fishing implements and 

 boats. These schooners, which sail very well, have a tonnage of 60 to 

 130, and a crew of 9 to 11, according to the size of the vessel and the 

 character of the fishing in which it is to be used. The schooners used 

 for bank-fishing either near Newfoundland (Grand Bank) or George's 

 Bank, are only furnished with long lines like the Swedish and Norwegian 

 bank-fishing vessels, but instead of the large and heavy boats used by 

 the latter, they have small flat-bottomed boats, so-called " dories", which 

 are considered unusually good and safe, and are handled a great deal 

 easier. Every bank- schooner has about 6 to 8 of these, arranged accord- 

 ing to their size, three to four on each side of the deck. Whilst fishing is 

 going on there are generallj- only two men in every dory, and single lines 

 with a few^ hundred hooks are used, not as in Sweden and Norway a long 

 row of lines tied together, with as many as 2,000 hooks, which latter 

 arrangement, of course, involves a much greater risk in stormy weather. 

 Nor do the Americans use the glass floats so common with the Swedish 

 and Norwegian fishermen, probably because the lines can be handled a 

 great deal easier without such floats, and are also more independent of 

 the various currents. The nature of the bottom near the American 

 coast is probably also more favorable for keeping the bait in place. The 

 Norwegian half-moon-shaped weight for sinking the lines is not known 

 in America, where a weight shaped like a plummet or a cylinder with a 

 thick brass wire stuck through it is used. The large hooks or prongs 

 used in Norway, by which the fish is frequently torn to pieces without 

 being caught, are known from olden times, but have long since been 

 abolished as unpractical and barbarous. The mackerel and herring 

 schooners which are engaged in fishing either along the coast or in the 

 Bay of Fundy during summer, or on the coasts of Newfoundland and 

 Labrador chiefly during autumn, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence dur- 

 ing winter, are now all furnished, not with lines, but with the so-called 

 ^' purse-seine", a new invention which of late years has become the favor- 

 ite American fishing implement in all waters excej^t on the banks, where 

 wind and current forbid its use. 



