212 THE NATURALIST IN NORWAY. 



As the herring fishery, in Norway, is carried on 

 during the most inclement part of the winter, it is 

 attended with great hardships. Many thousands of 

 poor fishermen assemble on the west coast, and ac- 

 commodation for them is but scanty. They live in 

 huts, and are much exposed to the inclemency of the 

 weather, for the climate of that part of Norway is 

 damp, and generally foggy. These poor fishermen 

 are a quiet and orderly race, of thrifty habits, and the 

 hard labour in which they are engaged from morning 

 until night allows them no time for quarrels or dis- 

 putes. 



The cod fishery is carried on off the Loffoden Is- 

 lands, a group extending from Bodo, the capital of 

 Nordland, to some distance beyond Tromso, the capital 

 of Finmark, or Norwegian Lapland. Their southern 

 extremity is twenty miles from the mainland, which 

 the islands gradually approach, until further north- 

 wards they form a channel. The people of Bodo, 

 Tromso, Hammerfest, and other places in the north, 

 almost depend for their subsistence on the fisheries. 

 About 16,000 fishermen assemble on the Loffodens 

 by about the beginning of February, when the fishing 

 for cod commences, and lasts until the middle or end 

 of April. The cod are caught in the west fjord,, off 

 the east coast of the Loffodens. The depth of water 

 can be sounded at a distance of fourteen miles from 

 the islands, where it varies from 200 to 300 fathoms. 

 The fishing " banks," as they are called, which are, in 

 fact, terraces under water, are nearer the islands. 

 These banks, or ledges, which are perpendicular, have 

 no gradual slope, and are three in number. The first 

 lies at a depth of 30 or 40 fathoms, when it drops 



