MASSACHUSETTS: GLOUCESTER DISTRICT. 151 



Gloucester fishermen have never made a business of capturing sharks, though when large 

 ones are accidentally taken on the lines the liver is generally saved for the oil, a large specimen 

 of the ground or sleeper shark (Somniosits microcrplialm} yielding many gallons of oil. 



Besides cod, hake, and dogfish oil, a large amount is annually made from the heads of halibut. 

 This business began in Gloucester about 1870, and is principally in the hands of two concerns, 

 which consume annually about 1,000,000 pounds of halibut heads. A limited number of these 

 heads were formerly salted for food, but the use of them for that purpose is now abandoned. Not 

 only the heads cut from the fresh fish, but also the backbones and other refuse of halibut obtained 

 from the smoking establishments are utilized for the production of oil. The process of manufact- 

 ure is simple. The entire lot of refuse heads and bones are thrown together in a large tank and 

 there treated with steam until thoroughly boiled. They are next placed in an open cylinder, and 

 by means of an hydraulic press the oil is crushed out and refined for curriers' use or mixed with 

 whale oil for various uses. The quantity of oil obtained from a ton of halibut heads is about forty 

 gallons. From the scrap left after the oil is pressed out, a valuable use is made by manufacturers 

 of fertilizers. 



Herring, and also the heads and bones of fresh codfish, are used to a limited extent by the 

 oil-makers. Occasional schools of black-fish are driven ashore on the north side of the cape and 

 their heads and blubber sold to the oil factories. In 1879 about one hundred of these fish were 

 captured at 'Sqnam and Coffin's beach. In the spring of 1880 several drift whales were towed 

 into Gloucester Harbor and two of them were stripped of their blubber, which was "tried out" for 

 the oil. 



Very little menhaden oil has been made in Gloucester since 1878. Previous to that date men- 

 haden were abundant north of Cape Cod, and a considerable quantity was brought to Gloucester 

 to be ground up for oil and gnauo. The principal use made of menhaden by Gloucester fishermen 

 has been for bait, and great quantities were once annually consumed by the mackerel and George's 

 fleets. 



"When mackerel arc very plenty inshore, as in the spring of 1880, there is sometimes an over 

 abundance of small fish, which are cf no use except to be ground up for guano and oil. A factory 

 has been built in Gloucester for canning fresh mackerel and herring, and many fish that were once 

 thrown away or used only for guano now find a ready sale at this cannery. 



FISH SOUNDS AND SPAWN. Cod and hake sounds are used in the manufacture of ribbon- 

 isinglass. Several firms buy these sounds of the fishermen, paying so much a pound for them 

 pickled in barrels. The sounds are washed, cleaned, dried, and sold to the isinglass-makers. 

 In 1879 the Gloucester fishermen saved enough of these sounds to weigh 110,500 pounds in 

 the dry condition, and valued at $03,600. Hake sounds are worth more than twice or three 

 times as much as the sounds of cod, the latter being mixed with the former in the production of 

 an inferior quality of isinglass. Hake sounds have been saved for the pas* fifty or sixty years, 

 though in no great quantities except during the past ten years, while cod sounds were not saved 

 at all prior to about 1870. 



The practice of saving the spawn of fish as a commercial product, was begun, by the Gloucester 

 fishermen, about the year 1808, and has continued ever since, the demand for the article varying 

 somewhat from year to year. The principal use of the spawn is for sardine bait, for which purpose 

 it is exported to France, where there is an annual consumption of about 50,000 barrels, of which 

 40,000 barrels are Norwegian cod roe, and 10,000 barrels French and American roe. During the 

 season commencing November, 1879, and ending April, 1880, Gloucester fishing vessels brought 



