258 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Franklin's successful experiment. 



to me the following fact. In that part of New 

 England where his father lived, two rivers dis- 

 charge themselves into the sea; in one of these 

 were caught great quantities of herrings, while 

 none were observed in the other, though their 

 mouths were at a very small distance. It was 

 remarked on the contrary, that the herrings 

 annually ascended the former to deposit their 

 spawn. Franklin, who lived between the two 

 rivers, tried whether it were not possible to make 

 the herrings ascend the other river likewise. With 

 this view he look the nets to which the spawn of 

 the fish adhered, and put it into the other river, 

 where it produced young fry. The experiment 

 was attended with the desired success, and after- 

 wards herrings were every year caught in that 

 river. This circumstance induces us to believe 

 that fish are fond of returning to their native 

 place, or such situations as they visit the first 

 time upon leaving the sea, for the purpose of 

 spawning." 



Such is the ancient date of the commerce in 

 herrings, that, according to Madox, in 1 195, the 

 town of Dunvvich was obliged to deliver twenty- 

 four thousand herrings to the king. In the thir- 

 teenth century the Icelanders carried on a great 

 trade with this fish, and obtained a grant of the 

 King of England, for themselves and the Holr 

 landers, securing to them the privilege of fishing 

 on the coast near Yarmouth. By a decree of 

 Kric VI. King of Denmark,, we find that a com- 



