1192 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [8] 



most favorable position, and if the common anchor cannot be cast 

 either because the water is too deep or for some other reason, so-called 

 floating anchors are frequently employed, which, quickly put together 

 from pieces of wood-work and sail-cloth and attached to a rope, and 

 being thrown overboard, drift more slowly than the vessel, and therefore 

 bring it into the desired position. A simple and cheap anchor of this 

 kind, which when folded together takes up but very little room and is 

 therefore well adapted to fishing-boats, and is always ready for use, 

 was exhibited by Bullivant. 



Oiling the waves. — Even ancient writers speak of the use of oil 

 for calming the waves of the sea ; it is well known that whalers and, 

 on a small scale some of our fishing vessels, calm the water within a 

 wide circumference by the oil dripping from them; but not until 

 recently has a beginning been made of jmtting this knowledge to more 

 general use. The construction of pipe-lines for oil at the bottom of the 

 Peterhead harbor, through which oil is pumi)ed in order to make it 

 easier for ships to enter the harbor in stormy weather, has proved very 

 successful. Small oil apparatus carried on board vessels and boats, 

 which, especially when the boats are to be let down, calm the waters 

 around the vessel and which are said to protect the boats against strong 

 waves, were exhibited by Bowman of Iluntly, and the reports concern- 

 ing them were exceedingly favorable. I have had some of these ap- 

 paratus made and given them to some fishermen on our coast for a 

 trial. 



Insurance. — In England special attention is justly paid to the im- 

 provement of the social condition of the fishermen, and it was pointed 

 out repeatedly, especially by His Royal Highness theDukeof Edinburgh, 

 how necessary it is to urge the fishermen to insure their lives, and 

 mutually to insure their boats and nets ; which i^recautiou unfortunately 

 meets with but little favor among those whose sole property consists 

 in boats and nets. In England priA'ate aid is extended on the most 

 liberal scale in every calamity; and, as regards popularizing the insur- 

 ance referred to above, some clergymen in the fishing villages have been 

 untiring in their eftbrts. A work by De Caux on the insurance of fish- 

 ermen was awarded a prize by the jury, and will soon appear in print. 

 Years ago an attempt was made to start an insurance association among 

 our Baltic fishermen, who often suffer severely from the loss of their 

 lines and nets, but unfortunately the project Avas abandoned owing to 

 the circumstance that it was very diificult to estimate the damage. 



Salmon. — Of the English fresh-water fish, the salmon alone is of any 

 economical imj)ortance. In consequence of the planting of young salmon^ 

 the construction of numerous salmon-ways, and the time when it is 

 prohibited to catch salmon — one hundred and fifty days per annum, 

 besides forty-eight hours every week — the salmon fisheries have every- 

 where increased very considerably-. Thus, in a small Irish river, the 

 Moy, which had been rendered accessible to the salmon only by the con- 



