1862 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



fessor Hind's evidence. The cause is this : that the fish then suddenly 

 find themselves in a zone of warmer water in which they do not care to 

 live, consequently they at once dive to a greater depth for the purpose 

 of finding a zone'of water more congenial to their habits of life, and by 

 and by they find their way back to the shore. Another piece of evi- 

 dence which Professor Hind gave struck me as being of great impor- 

 tance in this case. He pointed out one extraordinary phenomenon, which 

 is observable in the great Bay of St. Lawrence. He says that the tides 

 come in through the Straits of Belle Isle, and are divided by the Mag- 

 dalen Islands into two portions. One portion runs away along the 

 southern coast of Labrador, around the island of Anticosti, and up the 

 northern bank of the river St. Lawrence, while the other portion passes 

 down to Prince Edward Island and into the Strait of Northumberland. 

 He says that, in consequence of the great distance which one portion of 

 the tide has traversed while the other has traveled a shorter distance, 

 the tide coming down from the northern coast meets the ebb tide about 

 the middle of the island, and as a consequence of that there is really 

 high water always found about the center of the island ; and for that 

 reason the island' presents the peculiar appearance it does, having been 

 hollowed out year after year by the action of these tides. The effect of 

 that phenomenon is and it is a phenomenon which I think Professor 

 Hind stated only occurs in one or two other places in the habitable 

 globe that the whole of the fish food is carried inshore. The cold 

 water which is necessary to the existence of these food-fish of commerce, 

 such as the mackerel and the cod and the halibut, is carried inshore in 

 the bight of Prince Edward Island; it is carried inshore along the 

 southern coast of Labrador ; it is carried inshore along the northern 

 bank of the Kiver St. Lawrence. All this he points out as being the 

 necessary result of that tide. These fish are thus brought inshore, and 

 they necessarily have to remain inshore in order to get the food which 

 they most desire to feed upon. 



I then put this question to Professor Hind : " If there should be two 

 classes of witnesses here, each of them being a numerous class, and if 

 one class swears that the catch of mackerel off the Prince Edward 

 Island shore is very slight within the three-mile limit, and the other that 

 this catch is very good within the three mile limit, which would you 

 say, in a scientific point of view, is telling the truth ?" " Undoubtedly," 

 he replied, "those who swear that a very great portion of the catch is 

 taken there within the three-mile limit, because science says that this 

 must be the case/' 



So you see that, supposing these witnesses came here and honestly 

 told what they believed to be the truth, we have science stepping in and 

 deciding the question, and moreover deciding the question entirely in 

 favor of the British case. I shall therefore not trouble your excellency 

 and your honors any further with the evidence upon that point, but pass 

 to another branch of my argument. I believe that I stated yesterday in 

 the course of my argument, that were we to assume the American account 

 the inshore catch of mackerel in the gulf to be correct, and fix it at 

 one-third, that even then it would be quite impossible for them to pros- 

 ecute successfully mackerel fishing in the gulf, without having access 

 to the inshore fisheries. The business would not pay. They would 

 eventually be compelled to abandon the Gulf of Saint Lawrence alto- 

 gether, and in that case their market would not be supplied with mackerel. 



The evidence shows that although an exceptional catch may be made 



the bay without going near the shore at all, yet that no man in his 

 senses would fit out vessels and send them into' the bay unless he had 



