218 SEA FISHERIES 



but the engineers, with their habitual prevision, have 

 reserved an immense space for projected enlargements. 

 At the end of the basin are three dry docks, facing which 

 are the coalyards and the ice factory. Nearly 200 boats, 

 the majority of them steamboats, frequent the port. 

 Their radius of action extends to Iceland and the White 

 Sea as far as Morocco. 



The unloading of the fish is effected with the help 

 of the derricks on board and the electric cranes on the 

 quay. "The fish-merchants/' writes M. Hart, "assemble 

 in the morning, and auctions commence under the 

 direction of a sworn auctioneer, according to the order 

 in which the fish have arrived, which is indicated by 

 a notice-board. With the exception of herring, which 

 are sold by the box, the fish come into the market 

 weighed ; oysters are sold by the hundred and lobsters 

 by the piece." There are numerous preserving factories, 

 two factories preparing fish farina, and three factories 

 which prepare fish oil. An open belt of land has been 

 left near the breakwater. 



The modern fishing harbour of Cuxhaven is only three 

 years old. It is built in the estuary of the Elbe between 

 the Old Port, on the north, and the New Port, the com- 

 mercial port, of the same city. It comprises an outer 

 port, which opens through a breakwater, and a basin. 

 The trawlers moor bows on against a quay of wooden 

 piles, behind which is a market for the newly landed 

 fish, a packing-hall, and a cold chamber, and finally a 

 railway track. There are twenty reservoirs for fish in 

 this harbour, each of about r8 cubic yards in capacity. 



Ijmuiden, the principal fishing port of Holland, 

 situated on the canal running from Amsterdam to the 

 sea, consists of a single basin excavated to a depth of 

 19 feet below the low water of the charts, surrounded 



