170 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



such as may be found on the Dogger Bank and other 

 similar plateaux in the North Sea, the fish do not 

 congregate, and they will not go there to look for 

 them. Of course, where the water is very deep the 

 labour of the fishermen is or would be tremendously 

 enhanced, as would the amount of time taken ; but I 

 believe the fish would be found just as plentiful as in 

 the palmy days of the bank-trawling, where the trawl 

 could not be dragged too long because it would be 

 too heavy to heave in. And it is a question easily 

 answered, I think, whether it would not be better to 

 undertake deeper trawling nearer home than go so far 

 afield and take so many risks. But it is a difficult 

 matter to advise experts ; and, besides, it savours, to 

 them at any rate, of impertinence, so perhaps I had 

 better refrain from further attempts in that direction. 

 What, however, I would like to say before leaving this 

 section is, that the wealth of the sea in edible fish is 

 by no means confined to the shallows and banks near 

 our shores, but is spread with fair partiality over the 

 sea-bed, even to depths undreamed of by the ordinary 

 fishermen. 



Cross we now the broad Atlantic to those wonderful 

 plateaux in the sea, whereof Kipling wrote so graphi- 

 cally and so truly in " Captain Courageous," the New- 

 foundland and Nova Scotian Banks. Here, indeed, we 

 have a preserve of Nature's own making, which man, 

 come he in never so many numbers, can do naught 

 to deplete or even lessen. This is, perhaps, the most 

 thickly populated cod-country in the whole watery 

 world. I say perhaps advisedly, for since our ignorance 

 of what obtains beneath the ocean's surface is so vast, 

 it is hardly safe to generalize from the few facts which 



