20 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



him, and which I put in my journal for your 

 amusement. To-day there was a conversation 

 about our fisheries, and he related two facts 

 which I am in hopes will be quite new to you. 



You know that the great cod fishery which 

 supplies almost all Europe with salt-fish, is on 

 the sand-bank that extends from the island of 

 Newfoundland. The water is from twenty to 

 sixty fathoms in depth ; and when the Colonel 

 was returning from Canada with his regiment, 

 he persuaded the Captain of the ship to stop for 

 some hours on this bank, in order to catch cod 

 for the soldiers. He saw a great many hooked 

 with long lines and pulled up ; and he observed, 

 that when that was done very rapidly the air- 

 bladder burst, and pushed part of the stomach 

 out of the mouth. He explained to us that it 

 is the air-bladder that enables fish to raise or 

 lower themselves in the water, by taking in or 

 letting out more or less air; but this they can 

 only do gradually ; and therefore when the air has 

 been highly condensed at the bottom of the sea, 

 the pressure of fifty or sixty fathoms of water, it 

 expands the bladder more quickly than the fish 

 has the power of giving it vent. The air-bladder 

 is cured or salted with the fish, and is then called 

 the sound. 



This led the conversation to the different depths 

 which are inhabited by different classes of fish. 

 My uncle told us that turbots, soles, and other 



