38 The Commercial Products of tJie Sea. 



salt cod. Another fish for home consumption is the heinge 

 fish, in which the cod are split up along the back and hung 

 up unsalted to dry in sheds with open latticed sides. This 

 second kind is more shrivelled up in appearance than the 

 first, and is eaten uncooked by the Icelanders, who like- 

 wise dry and eat the refuse heads. 



Somehow or other we have let the French forestall us in 

 that quarter. The French fishermen catch more in the Ice- 

 land seas than the Icelanders themselves, and carry away 

 to France as much cod as is worth 6,725,000 francs a year 

 (^"270,000). The abundance of fish in the Iceland seas at- 

 tracted fishermen from many other countries ; but, for some 

 reason not easily to be explained, the French are now the 

 only foreigners who carry on the fishing largely. Some few 

 Belgians are occasionally seen, and a few Scotch fishermen 

 from the Shetlands, but their number is insignificant. The 

 Danish Government, to which Iceland belongs, lays down 

 certain limits within which foreign fishing-boats may not 

 approach the shore ; but collisions unfortunately occur 

 between those who carry on the line fishing, because the 

 French, when driven by the weather or by the movements 

 of the shoal, come within the prohibited limits, then en- 

 tanglements of gear result, followed by quarrels. The 

 French fishermen usually have a fleet of 250 vessels there 

 in the season, averaging 90 tons, and worked by 4400 men. 

 These vessels are mostly schooner-rigged. Although 

 the native boats are nearly ten times as numerous, and 

 the crews twice as many, the French catch more cod than 

 the Icelanders, for the majority of the native craft are, 

 as we have said, mere small open boats. The quantity 

 caught altogether must be very large, for the Icelanders 

 alone export 5,000,000 Ibs. to 7,000,000 Ibs. annually. The 

 average number of French vessels employed in the cod 



