142 SEA FISHERIES 



prises "deeps" and "shallows." The "deeps" are 

 trenches full of water, some ten or twelve feet wide and 

 five to six feet deep. The " shallows " consist of a kind 

 of tableland supporting a sheet of water, which at the 

 highest tides is not more than some 20 inches in depth. 

 The banks surrounding the deeps and shallows are 

 known as the "humps" (bosses). 



Deeps, shallows, and humps constitute a little system 

 in themselves, and a fishpond consists of a multiplicity 

 of such systems. 1 The communication of the fishpond 

 with the sea is assured by sluices pierced in the bottom 

 of the dike. The bottom of the sluice, which is of con- 

 crete, slopes downward on either side of the gate, the 

 slope seaward being i in 10 and the slope landward i in 

 20. The sluice-gate is of cast iron and is raised by means 

 of a screw. Between the sluice and the pond is a 

 "sleeve," or a net in the form of a truncated cone, 

 22 feet in length, and a finer net called the "inner 

 frame." Between the sluice and the sea is an "outer 

 frame." A length of 4/65 miles of dike is pierced by an 

 average of twenty sluices served by seven men, and is 

 backed by 625 acres of water, deeps and shallows. 



1 Fishponds are a very ancient device. We do not know for 

 certain whether they owe their origin to China, but we may affirm, 

 on the authority of the elder Pliny, that Lucinius Murena, about the 

 year 1 10 B.C., had large fishponds laid out in the neighbourhood of 

 Rome. The Romans had a taste for rare fish, for luxurious meals, 

 and, in short, for all the paraphernalia of gourmandism ; hence 

 their elaborate fishponds. All the Roman nobles, Lucullus at their 

 head, owned fishponds. The murasna and the gilt-head were the 

 fish generally reared. Red mullet were also reared and were sold 

 at a great price, as only two or three used to reach maturity out of 

 several thousand. Thus among the Romans it was their wealth, 

 which developed a love of luxury, that was responsible for the 

 creation of fishponds, while in France they were the result of 

 poverty, which sooner or later develops a thirst for wealth. 



