14vS THE l-JSHKiJIES. 



and a- tlic railway systi^iu cxte'iuls tlie demand is likely to grow.- 

 To tilt' iulialntants of warm enuntries the diieil vod i'uvnislK'.s 

 a i)alatalile article of food, and many of them regartl it as indis- 

 pensalile. Since the days of Cervantes and Don Quixote, the 

 ilried cod, nnder the nld l!a>([Ur name of 6«crrt/((o or nim(UU<i has 

 lieen in use, and i.- now more appreciated than ever. Thus a 

 cod-pi'oducing country, like Newfoundland, possesses in tliis iu- 

 dustrv, a .source of pvo>pi-rity that can never fail, and which the 

 fluctuations of trade, tn- the raprice.s of fashion cannot seriously 

 affect. Let Xewfouudland only cherish and develope her great- 

 coil fishery, and in it her peojije have a mainstay that will ever 

 ])rove a source of national wealth. 



THE AKCTIC CIJRKKNT LIVING SLIMK IT CAIililKS. 



There is another consideration which empha.sizes the .secvuity 

 and permanence of this cod fishery. The Arctic Current, which 

 washes the .shores of Lahrador and Newfoundland, is laden with 

 the food on which the commercial fishes live and thrive, and 

 l)rings with it a ne\er-failing sui)ply for their sustenance. 80 

 far from being unfavourahle to tlie production of life, the Arctic 

 .seas and the great iiver> which they send forth ai'e swarming 

 with minute forms of life, constituting, in many places, " a living 

 mass, a vast ocean of living slime."' Swarms of minute crusta- 

 ceans, annelids and mollusca feed on this " .slime," and in their 

 turn become the tooil c>f larger marine animals, even up to the 

 giant whale. Curiously I'nough this ocean .slime is most abun- 

 dant in the coldest waters, and esjjecially in the neighbourhood 

 of ice-fields and ice-bergs. Thus, then, the great ice-laden "river 

 in the ocean" which rushes out of Baffin's Bay, carrying on its 

 bo.som myriads of ice-bergs, and washing the shores of Lal)rador 

 and Newfoundland, is swarming with the mim;te forms of marine 

 life, from the diatom to the minute cru.stacean, and the crab and 

 prawn, together with the molluscous animals and starfish in vast 

 profusion, which contribute to the support of the great schools of 

 cod which also find tlieir home there. Very wonderful are these 

 great processes of nature. These vast battalions of ice-bergs, the 



