558 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



The cod-fisli thus dried at Newfoundland are forwarded for con- 

 sumption to all parts of the world ; but only a small part of the 

 products of the fishery are thus prepared. More than half the pro* 

 duce of the French fleet are sent to France merely salted, by ships 

 which carry salt, bringing back fish in return to Kochelle, Bordeaux, 

 and Cette, where the process of curing is completed. In our home 

 fisheries, to abbreviate slightly Dr. Bertram's account, the greater 

 part of the cod taken are eaten fresh, but considerable quantities of 

 the cod and ling taken on the coast are sent to market cured. The 

 process pursued is very simple : .they are brought on shore quite fresh, 

 and are at. once split from head to tail, and by copious washings 

 thoroughly cleansed from all particles of blood ; a piece of the back- 

 bone is cut away ; they are drained, and afterwards laid down in long 

 vats, where they are covered with salt, and kept under heavy weights. 

 By-and-by the fish are taken out of the vats ; they are once more 

 drained, and carefully brushed, to remove any impurity, and bleached 

 by being spread out singly on the sandy beach, or on the rocks ; when 

 thoroughly bleached, they are collected into heaps technically called 

 steeples, and when the Uoom, or whitish appearance, comes out on the 

 fish, they are ready for the market. 



The cod is one of our best-known fishes, and was at one time much 

 more plentiful and cheap. It is a deep-water fish, found in all 

 northern seas, and in the Atlantic, but never in the Mediterranean. 

 It is extremely voracious, greedily eating up the smaller denizens of 

 the ocean. It grows to a large size, and is very prolific, as most fishes 

 are. A cod-roe has been found more than once to be half the gross 

 weight of the fish, and specimens of the female cod have been caught 

 with upwards of eight millions of eggs. The fish spawn in mid- 

 winter : but here our information ceases ; when it becomes reproductive 

 is unknown. Dr. Bertram thinks that it is at least three years old 

 before it is endowed with breeding power. 



The growth of the cod is supposed to be very slow. Dr. Bertram 

 quotes the authority of a rather learned fisherman of Buckie, who had 

 seen a cod which had got enclosed in a large rock pool, and he found 

 that it did not grow at a greater rate than eight to twelve ounces per 

 annum, though it had abundance of food. 



On our own coast two modes of fishing are in common use : one by 

 deep-sea lines, on each of which hooks are fastened at distances twelve 



