Sixth Annual Meeting. 99 



information about the temperature and the salt and a good lot of 

 other things ; and one of them, who had a different opinion about 

 it from other people in Norway, found out that as far as the 

 vessel went to Iceland they could find herring ; and on the other 

 hand, that not many miles off the coast they found no cod. 

 Before that expedition everybody thought that the cod was to 

 be found all over the ocean, and that they would not find the 

 herring but a couple of miles off the coast. The principal 

 question about the fish is how to take care of the fisheries, 

 but the question has no real importance to us because we do not 

 know the reason why the fish do not come. Upon the mackerel 

 fisheries we have no laws at all. They can catch mackerel 

 when they want to and can bring them to the market whenever 

 they want to, and they have no control of the trade. They have 

 not, as here in America, three sizes of mackerel. They have no 

 marks on them at all. They generally send them fresh to the 

 market in the country, and send them in ice to England. The 

 fishery laws in Norway are only in regard to the fresh-water 

 fishery, but the fresh-water fishery is very inferior to our salt- 

 water fishery, and not worth mentioning at all ; but the fishery- 

 laws about fresh- water fish are very particular, and nearly every 

 year there is some alteration in them. There is a certain time by 

 law to put nets in the sea, and at the same time we have a special 

 law for every part of Norway. When we in our legislation 

 have a law, it means a law for the whole country ; but in this law 

 about fresh-water fisheries, they have a paragraph allowing one 

 section of the country to alter it for their own use, in regard to 

 the localities there and according to the opinion of the popula- 

 lation in that locality ; and after having had meetings about it, 

 they fix a certain time : for instance, two days in the week they 

 cannot by law catch fish in some parts, and in other parts of the 

 country they have fixed a certain size of the meshes, etc. But 



