COD 



1459 



CODE WRITING 



brown spots. The larger fish weigh from twenty 

 to thirty-five pounds ; the smaller, about twelve 

 pounds. However, some extraordinary speci- 

 mens have been caught; the largest ever cap- 

 tured off the New England coast weighed 211 1 /fc 

 pounds and was over six feet long, and there 

 are stories of others which weighed from 100 

 to 175 pounds. 



Judging from the things found in the stomach 

 of captured fish, such as scissors, oil-cans, rings, 

 rocks, potato parings, corn-cobs, rubber and 

 leather, the cod will eat anything. Its more 

 natural diet consists of crustaceans (lobsters, 

 shrimps, crabs, etc.), mollusks, small fishes and 

 various forms of sea vegetation. The -fish 

 spawn along the northern coasts of Europe in 

 February, March and April; the spawning 

 period on the American coast lasts from No- 

 vember to April. The number of eggs produced 

 by the cod is astonishing; and if all of them 

 from a seventy-five pound fish during its life 

 should hatch and grow to maturity the ocean 

 would be filled with an almost solid mass of 

 cod. A cod weighing twenty-one pounds will 

 produce 2,700,000 eggs in one spawning period; 

 these are so small that it takes 337,000 to fill 

 a quart pail. Because large numbers of eggs 

 are destroyed before they hatch and millions 

 are eaten by other fishes cod do not multiply 

 so rapidly as might be assumed; in fact, arti- 

 ficial propagation is often necessary, and this 

 is one of the most important labors of the fish 

 commissions of the United States and Canada. 



The Fisheries. The chief cod fisheries of 

 the world are those of Norway and Sweden, 

 Great Britain, France, Canada, Newfoundland 

 and the United States. The value of the an- 

 nual catch for the United States averages about 

 $3,500,000; that for Canada, about $8,368,000. 

 American fishermen usually go to the Grand 

 Banks of Newfoundland (ridges in the ocean 

 where the water is only a few hundred feet in 

 depth), and to the Georges' Banks, off Cape 

 Cod. Nearly all of the 600 or more ships 

 of the United States cod-fishing fleet hail from 

 Gloucester, Mass., the headquarters of the in- 

 dustry. 



The fishermen start out in swift little schoon- 

 ers, which have attached to them two or three 

 small row boats, called dories. When the 

 fishing grounds are reached they set their 

 trawls, which are long lines anchored at both 

 ends and held up by buoys. To these trawls 

 smaller lines with baited hooks are fastened 

 every few yards. A few hours later some of 

 the men visit the trawls in the dories and re- 



move the cod which have been caught on the 

 hooks; they then carry the catch back to the 

 schooner, and when the vessel has received a 

 load it returns to port. 



Codfish is usually sold salted and dried. 

 Cod-liver oil, obtained from the liver of the 

 fish, is taken by persons who are ill-nourished 

 and need building up. About 30,000,000 pounds 

 of dried codfish are prepared each year in the 



Water; 82.6 Protein, 15.8 Fat.0.4 Ash. 1.2 



FOOD VALUE OF FRESH COD 



United States, but the export trade is for the 

 most part carried on by Norway, Newfound- 

 land and Canada. The chief markets of the 

 world are France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and 

 Brazil. See FISH, subtitle Deep-sea Fisheries; 

 also subhead Fish Culture. 



CODE, kode, NAPOLEON, the French civil 

 code of laws compiled under the direction of 

 Napoleon I and largely a reenactment of the 

 Justinian Code, or systematized body of Ro- 

 man law. Properly, it is the entire body of 

 French law as contained in the Five Codes pro- 

 mulgated between 1804 and 1810. The term is 

 especially applied to the first of these codes, 

 established by Napoleon as a result of the 

 labors, under his direction, of eminent French 

 jurists. The great merit of the code is its sim- 

 plicity, but in spite of this it has aroused con- 

 troversies and there has been considerable legis- 

 lative amendment. To Americans interest in 

 the Napoleonic code lies in the fact that it 

 is the foundation of the code of the state of 

 Louisiana, which was French in its early period. 

 Every other state in the United States bases 

 its laws upon the Roman code. See CIVIL 

 LAW; JUSTINIAN. 



CODE WRITING, a method of writing a 

 message so that none but those possessed of the 

 key may decipher its meaning. It is of an- 

 cient origin, and its study has been one of 

 great interest in all ages. It requires ingenuity 

 to conceal the meaning of a written message, 

 but it has been said that, no matter how in- 

 genious a code or cipher may be, someone with 

 sufficient ingenuity will be found to decipher it. 

 Julius Caesar used one of the simplest forms 



