48 FOOD FISHES 



Current, the great icebergs from Greenland and the northern 

 islands come floating towards the south, until meeting with 

 warmer water they gradually melt away. Frozen in with the ice 

 are lumps of rock, and stones, and gravel, torn off from the 

 valleys of the lands down which the parent glaciers slid, and all 

 this accumulated debris, set free by the melting of the ice, 

 has formed great submarine banks towards the south-east of 

 Newfoundland. They are known as the Grand Banks, and 

 cover an area of 120,000 square miles. 



This meeting of the currents has also another result. For, 

 wherever cold and warm currents meet, the lighter warm 

 water floats on the top of the cold, and the tiny delicate food- 

 plants, together with the myriads of creatures which feed upon 

 them (and which in their turn afford sustenance to other forms 

 of animal life) being unable to withstand the sudden change of 

 temperature are killed, or, if not killed, find themselves unable 

 to pass through the lower layer of dense water, and so accumu- 

 late in large numbers in the upper layers. The consequence 

 is that there is a vast bulk of dead and living food available 

 for such fishes as cod and haddock, herrings, mackerel, and 

 many other kinds of fish, which inhabit these waters in 

 enormous multitudes. It is this abundance of food which 

 makes the Grand Banks, and also the eastern waters of the 

 United States, such valuable fishing grounds. 



Of all the teeming population on the Grand Banks, cod are 

 the most abundant, and the cod fishery here is the most 

 important in the whole world. The fishery lasts from June 

 to November and fishermen of all nations take part in it, but 

 the men of Newfoundland are the most numerous, as the 

 Banks are only one day's sail from their shores and their 

 coasts abound in the creatures which are used for bait, such, 

 for instance, as whelks, and limpets, and mussels, and squids. 



Nearly everybody in the island is connected in some way 

 with the fishing industry, 90 per cent, of their exports con- 

 sisting of fish, of which cod form more than half. As you 

 walk along through the fishing villages you see everywhere 



