294 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



war — or of the predominating position to which our fishing- 

 fleets had attained. In 1914, our fisheries made up nearly 

 one-half of the total for all countries of North-West Europe, 

 and nearly 70 per cent, of the North Sea fisheries alone. 

 The total produce of our sea-fisheries had more than doubled 

 in the previous quarter of a century, and the average of the 

 last few years before the war amounted to over a million 

 tons (about 23,500,000 cwts.), bringing in about £15,000,000 

 when landed, and to be valued at probably three times as 

 much, say nearly fifty milUons sterling, by the time it 

 reached the consumers. In 1922, the value of the total 

 fish as landed was about £18,000,000. 



This great increase, previous to 1914, in the amount of 

 fish brought to the markets, had been due to improvements 

 in the boats and in the methods of fishing, and to an 

 enormous extension of the fishing-grounds. The picturesque 

 old saihng trawler of Brixham, working in local waters with 

 a smaU beam-trawl, had developed into the large but ugly 

 and highly efficient modern steam-trawlers equipped with 

 huge otter-trawls, and making lengthy voyages to Iceland 

 and the White Sea in the North, or the Canaries and the 

 coast of Morocco to the south — conducting their operations, 

 in fact, over an area of the continental shelf occupying 

 more than a million square miles and down to depths of 

 over 200 fathoms. 



All this applies to the time before the war. As a natural 

 result of war conditions, and the economic disturbances that 

 followed, the produce of the sea-fisheries dropped to less 

 than a third of what it had been — the total catch during 

 war-time averaged about 7,000,000 cwts. per annum. Very 

 many milHons of fish were therefore left uncaught in the 

 sea to grow and propagate, and it has been an interesting 

 speculation and investigation ever since whether or not this 

 unforeseen and undesired experiment in restriction of fishing, 

 on an enormous scale, has resulted in the restocking of 

 depopulated grounds, such as parts of the North Sea. That 



