THE COD FISHERY 283 



water. After they had been placed in the wells they in- 

 variably revived. Another early method of preserving 

 the fish, especially halibut, from becoming injured by lying 

 in a body in the hold of the vessel was to hang them up by 

 the tail on large hooks that had been arranged for the pur- 

 pose. Both these methods were cumbersome; neither was 

 suited for the making of large cargoes of fish. With the 

 introduction of ice-houses aboard the schooner the fresh- 

 fish industry was placed on a more economical basis. 



The first ice-house was constructed on board a vessel en- 

 gaged in the fresh halibut business in 1846. The method 

 was to place the fish in the house itself, much as meat is 

 now preserved in cold storage rooms. The process of pack- 

 ing the fish in chiseled ice was not employed until many 

 years later. The question of bait has always been more 

 or less serious for the fisherman who frequents the off- 

 shore banks for his fish. The practice used to be for the 

 vessels to take small seines with them for the capture, 

 near the land, of some variety of bait-fish. This was espe- 

 cially true of the fleet of cod-fishermen that went to the 

 coast of Labrador for their trips. Toward evening a boat 

 would go out from the vessel to the shallow inlets of the 

 bays and set the seine for the capelin that school at that 

 time. Often fresh-fish vessels would in some way catch 

 their bait in the bays adjacent to the fishing grounds. 

 But the fresh-fish industry was not fully launched in its 

 career of greatest development and value until the trade 

 in frozen herring with Newfoundland was begun. That 

 important industry made it possible for the New Eng- 

 land fishermen to secure a cheaper bait when other bait 

 was out of the market, and, as a consequence, since the 

 middle of the last century there has been a great change 

 in the quantity of business carried on in fresh ground fish. 



By 1879, the business had reached such a profitable stage 

 that forty vessels from Gloucester were employed exclu- 



