346 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



being often found in their capacious stomachs, no 

 fewer than thirty-five crabs, none of them smaller 

 than a half-crown piece, having been taken from 

 one fish. No fish is of greater utility. The flesh 

 is white, firm, and of excellent quality, and every 

 part of the fish is capable of being turned to some 

 useful purposes. The tongue, either salted or 

 fresh, is a great delicacy. The gills are employed 

 as baits in fishing ; the liver furnishes an enormous 

 quantity of excellent oil, applicable to a variety of 

 useful purposes, and possessing highly nutritive 

 qualities, and peculiarly suited as an article of 

 nourishment to persons of feeble health ; the swim- 

 ming-bladder furnishes isinglass equal in quality 

 to that yielded by the sturgeon ; and even the head 

 furnishes the fisherman and his family with food. 

 The Norwegians, on whose coast the cod is very 

 abundant, give it together with marine plants to 

 their cows, for the purpose of producing a greater 

 quantity of milk. In Iceland the bones afford 

 nourishing food for cattle, and the people of 

 Kamschatka feed their valuable dogs with it. On 

 the desolate shores of the Icy Sea the same parts 

 when thoroughly dried are employed as fuel. 



The fecundity of the cod is amazing. Nine 

 millions of eggs have been counted in the roe of 

 a single fish of middling size, and if the enormous 

 multitudes which must be thus produced and 

 which must survive the devastation of their 

 enemies, be taken into consideration, along with 

 the useful and valuable properties which this fish 

 possesses, it is impossible not to admit that among 



