2006 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



modate 50 or 100 vessels. I do not know but that a whole fleet could 

 lie there. 



Q. You would be surprised to hear a man swear that there was not 

 room enough in it for five or ten vessels ? A. O, Lord, that won't do. 

 There were more than ten in it when I was there. 



Q. Is Souris Harbor also a good one? A. I did not think much of it 

 when I was there. I have heard, however, that a breakwater has been 

 built there since. I do not know how secure they have now made it. 



Q. Do you recollect that 8 American vessels were lost at the Magda- 

 len Islands so recently as in 1874 ? A. Xo. I was not aware of that. 

 "We had no vessels there in 1874 from Proviucetown. 



Q. During the last 26 years since the great American gale of 1851 

 has there been any American vessel lost at Prince Edward Island, the 

 Carrie P. Rich excepted ? A. Well, I do not think or know of any other 

 having been lost there. Several Cape Ann vessels might, however, have 

 been lost there and I know nothing of it. 



Q. But you are unaware of this having been the case ? A. I am not. 

 I could not place any other vessel as having been lost there. Still I do 

 not know but what a great many were lost there during this period. I 

 know that a great many Cape Ann vessels were lost that year. 



Q. What earthly reason have you for supposing that the mackerel go 

 far from the coast at all J ? A. All I want to say positively on this sub- 

 ject is that they do go away. When the cold weather comes on, and 

 the water becomes so cold that they begin to grow poor, they go off to 

 parts unknown, and we can only conjecture as to the places where they 

 do go. One opinion is as good as another in this respect. 



Q. Is there anything incredible in the theory that they only go out a 

 few miles from the coast in deep water and stay there? A. I have no 

 idea that they make very long migrations. 



Q. Did you not say yesterday that mackerel caught in the spring are 

 sometimes supposed to have a muddy taste ? A. I said that in former 

 years we used to catch large mackerel iu gill-nets very early in the 

 season, and that at no other place except Provincetown ; men whose 

 business it was to take them could not then catch any elsewhere along 

 the coast or with hooks, and people conceived the idea that these were 

 the remnant of the mackerel which had visited the coast the year pre- 

 vious, and which had remained during the winter imbedded in the 

 mud. 



Q. Did not that look very much as if the theory I mention is true ? 

 A. It did ; but since then we find that, by putting nets outside, we can 

 catch them anywhere along the coast south of that as well as in Prov- 

 incetowu Harbor. 



Q. Have you never heard propounded the theory that mackerel go 

 out into water deep enough to preserve them from the action of storms, 

 and there hybernate all winter in the mud ? A. I do not know about 

 that. People tell me that they have seen mackerel a little north of the 

 Gulf Stream, and we all know where that is; but I believe that they go 

 off into deep water which is of ; he temperature they require, and remain 

 there ; but I do not know what they do during the winter. I only know 

 that they go off in the fall and return iu the spring. 



Q. They could come back poor even if they remained a few miles off 

 shore ? A. Certainly ; but they are gone beyond our reach, and we do 

 not know where they go for the winter. 



Q. This is pure matter of conjecture, and the theory that they keep 

 in their native waters all the year round would be just as plausible as 



