130 GEOGEAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



and carry 2 men and a boy each, say 1,800 bands, and consume annually 15,000 hogsheads of salt. 

 They take and cure 120,000 quintals of fish, which are used for the home and West India markets, 

 except the very first, which they take early in the spring, being of an excellent quality, are sent 

 to the Bilboa market, in Spain, where they bring a great price. These vessels measure about 

 10,800 tons, and make 9,000 barrels of oil. There also were about 200 schooners employed in the 

 mackerel fishery, measuring 8,000 tons, carrying 1,600 men and boys, take 50,000 barrels of 

 mackerel annually, and consume 6,000 hogsheads of salt. The alewive, shad, salmon, and herring 

 fisheries are immense, and consume a great quantity of salt. 



Recapitulation of the cod and mackerel fisheries of New England, 1790-1810. 



Vessels 2,332 



Tonnage 115,940 



Men 15,059 



Salt, hogsheads 265,370 



Fish, quintals 1,353,700 



Oil, barrels 50,520 



Mackerel, barrels 50,000 



"There are many persons who assert that in one year there were at Labrador and up the Bay 

 more than 1,700 vessels, besides the bankers, but I am very confident that they are much mis- 

 taken." 



The extent of the fisheries of Massachusetts in 1837, as quoted from Macgregor's report by 

 Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, in a speech delivered in Congress August 5, 1852, was as follows: 



Number of vessels employed in cod and mackerel fisheries 12, 290 



Tonnage of same 76,089 



Number of quintals of codfish caught 510,554 



Value of same 1,569,517 



Number of barrels of mackerel caught 234, 059 



Value of same $1,039,049 



Men employed 11, 146 



Total value of cod and mackerel $3,208,866 



Mr. Hamlin says: 



"The number of seamen estimated there as being engaged in that year is placed at 11,146. 

 That is the number of seamen actually engaged on the ocean. There is another class of men, very 

 numerous, which serves to increase the number a considerable per cent., who are left upon the 

 shore for the purpose of curing, preserving, and taking care of the fish, and who alternate with 

 those who do the fishing; consequently the number of fishermen who are returned as actually 

 employed in the business is not the actual number of those who devote their lives to that 

 occupation. And the number of seamen who are engaged at different times in the fisheries cannot 

 be accurately ascertained; but it is at least 50 per cent, above the number of those who are 

 employed any given time in fishing." 



The United States census statistics for 1840 give the following items concerning the Massa- 

 chusetts fisheries, including the whale fishery: 



Number of quintals of smoked and dry fish 389, 715 



Number of barrels of pickled fish 124, 755 



Number of gallons of spermaceti oil 3, 630, 972 



Number of gallons of whale and other fish oil 3,364,725 



Value of whalebone and other productions of the fisheries 442,974 



Number of men employed 16, 000 



Capital invested 11,725,650 



