338 SEA FISHERIES 



perforated boat-shaped boxes, which they tow into port 

 behind their vessels. But these are primitive devices; the 

 usual reservoir is on board the vessel itself. Bateaux- 

 viviers, "fishpond boats" or "live carriers," are now 

 numerous. All the French crayfish vessels contain 

 reservoirs, the water being constantly renewed. The 

 majority of the Danish fishing boats also have reservoirs, 

 which keep the fish alive, and for this reason these vessels 

 are greatly favoured by the German market, in which 

 dead fish is at a discount of 30 per cent, to 40 per cent. 

 Plaice and soles, taken from the Esbjerg reservoirs at 

 midday and carefully packed, reach the Berlin market 

 alive as it opens on the following day. 



Once reservoirs were installed on board ship, it was 

 only a step in advance to place them in railway waggons. 

 There are many different systems, of which I will 

 mention two or three. In 1895 Sweden, Norway and 

 Germany employed a kind of boiler-shaped tank bedded 

 in the car, fitted with an apparatus for producing oxygen, 

 a jet of which aerated the sea-water in which the fish were 

 carried, while a filter at the base of the boiler ran off the 

 excrementory products. Recently German inventors have 

 produced a new device. It consists of a simple wooden 

 box, hermetically sealed. At the bottom is a bed of 

 moistened rags, on which the fish are laid. The water 

 evaporates, and the humidity of the enclosed air prevents 

 the gills of the fish from drying. Finally, a series of holes 

 in the cover prevent the pressure from rising inside the 

 box. Fish packed in this way can survive three or 

 four days. Restored to the water, they eat all that is 

 given them. Carriage costs very little if this system is 

 employed, the boxes being extremely light. 



The best development may be called " The Ocean at 

 Home." I have already spoken of the reservoirs of the 



