THE COD FISHERY. 239 



oil. The fish are plunged into the cauldron, two rows deep, 

 arranged on wire gratings. They are afterwards placed to 

 drip, the oil being carefully collected, after which they are 

 packed in the tin boxes with which we are so familiar. It 

 is said that, besides the quantity exported, as many as four 

 millions are annually prepared for the home market. 



We need not enter into any particulars about the Cod 

 fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, which presents noth- 

 ing new or very interesting except in the value attached to 

 •every part of this valuable fish. The tongue of the cod, 

 whether fresh or salted, is a great delicacy ; the gills are 

 used as baits in fishing; the liver, which is large and good 

 for eating, also furnishes an enormous quantity of oil, now 

 much esteemed for consumptive patients; the swimming- 

 bladder furnishes an isinglass ; the head is eaten, and the 

 Norwegians give it, with marine plants, to their cows, to 

 produce a greater quantity of milk ; the vertebrae, the ribs, 

 and the bones are given by the Icelanders to their cattle; 

 'even the intestines and eggs are eaten. The coast of Ice- 

 land abounds in fish, especially of the cod tribe, and this 

 abundance has not only from a very early time supplied tlie 

 inhabitants w^ith their chief food, but enabled them to pro- 

 cure other necessaries. As the principal fishings begin on 

 the Newfoundland coast, at the Feroe Islands, in Norway, 

 and in Iceland at the same time, it seems evident that the 

 €od is not a migratory fish, but a dweller w^iere it finds its 

 food. The Icelanders fish chiefly from open boats, and 

 sometimes from decked ones. Only the largest boats, with 

 six or twelve oars, are used in the cod fishery, and in these 

 the natives often go out man}^ miles to sea in the depth of 

 winter to fish. They are a most hardy set of mariners. 

 -Their mode of capturing the cod is either by small drift- 

 nets, deep-sea or hand lines, and the ordinary long line. 

 The fish caught by the net are diff'erent from those taken 

 by the line, being more plump, with smaller heads. The 



