554 THE OCEAN WORLD 



streams or rivers, remaining during the greater part of the year in the 

 depths of the sea. Its habitual sojourn is in the portion of the 

 Northern Ocean lying between the fortieth and sixty-sixth degrees of 

 latitude. 



In the vast range thus frequented by the cod, two large spaces are 

 pointed out which it seems to prefer. The first extends to the coast 

 of Greenland, and the other is limited by Iceland, Norway, the 

 Danish coast, Germany, Holland, and the east and north coast of 

 Great Britain and the Orkney Isles, comprehending the Doggerbank, 

 Vellbank, and Cromer coast, together with salt-water lakes and arms 

 of the sea, such as the Gairloch, Portsoy, and the Moray Firth, which 

 indent the west coast of Scotland, and attract considerable shoals of 

 cod-fish. 



The second range, less generally known, but more celebrated among 

 sailors, includes the coast of New England, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 

 and, above all, the island of Newfoundland, on the south coast of 

 which is the famous sand-bank called the Great Bank, having a 

 length of nearly two hundred leagues, with a breadth of sixty-two, 

 over which flows from ten to fifty fathoms of water. Here the cod- 

 fish swarm, for here they meet shoals of herrings and other animals, 

 on which they feed. Such is, according to Lacepede, the geographical 

 distribution of the cod-fish. 



The English, French, Dutch, and Americans give themselves up to 

 the cod-fishery on the bank of Newfoundland with . inconceivable 

 ardour. This island was discovered and visited by the Norwegians in 

 the tenth and eleventh centuries, long before the discovery of America; 

 but it was only in 1497, after the discoveries of Columbus, that the 

 navigator, John Cabot, having visited these regions, gave it the name 

 by which it has since been known, and called attention to the swarms 

 of cod-fish which inhabited the- surrounding sea. Immediately after, 

 the English and some other nations hastened ta reap these fruitful 

 fields of living matter. In 1578, France sent a hundred and fifty 

 ships to the great bank, Spain a hundred and twenty-five, Portugal 

 fifty, and England forty. 



During the first half of the eighteenth century, England and her 

 colonies, with the French, cultivated the cod-fishery. 



From 1823 to 1831 France sent three hundred and forty-one ships, 

 with seven thousand six hundred and eighty-five men, which carried 



