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for the Study of the Sea, in 1907*), I endeavoured to formulate this programme of work 
in the following words: 
“To make my ideas clearer, I will proceed to draw a comparison between this Fi- 
shery Research and a science which is much more generally understood. I mean the 
science of Vital Statistics. 
In all exposition of the science of vital statistics, there are three prominent features 
which attract our chief consideration: — 
1. Birth-rate. 2. Age-distribution. 3. Migration. It is customary to study these 
questions by the help of what are called representative statistics. A certain number 
of individuals are selected, who are supposed to stand for the mass of the people, and 
attention is direeted to them. We ascertain from this source their average length of life, 
their wanderings, their increase or decrease, and whether sickness, war, disaster, or 
emigration plays any appreciable part in reducing the population. 
It seems at first sight a bold suggestion to propose studying the fish-supply on lines 
like these. A population can be counted; but who knows how many fishes are in the 
sea? And yet it appears to me a project big with possibility, to regard the discoveries 
of fishery research from a similar standpoint to what has been adopted in the science 
of vital statistics”. 
I also took occasion to mention, in the course of the same lecture, the most impor- 
tant results of the investigations then already carried out, as follows: 
»Of the utmost importance is the really significant fact, that our material from 
several banks in the North Sea clearly points towards the same numerical relations bet- 
ween the different year classes (as in the Skagerak). Thus on all the banks, individual 
fish born in the years 1902 and 1903 were in much scantier numbers than those born 
in 1904. This will appear from a series of curves showing the number of individuals 
of the various sizes from the different banks that were from time to time subjected to 
investigation, such as the Dogger Bank, the Great Fisher Bank, the Coast Banks and 
the banks in the northern portion of the North Sea. 
From the copious English fishery statistics, it appears that in 1904 and 1905 fewer 
small haddocks were landed than in 1906, whereas the quantity of large haddocks was 
about the same for all three years. Our previous statements explain this, for so-called 
“small” haddocks are, roughly speaking, two years old, and consequently, owing to the 
scarcity of fish born in 1902 and 1903, extremely few small haddocks were caught in 
1904—1905, while on the other hand, in 1906, numbers of haddock born in 1904 
were brought to market. Thus we are now enabled to foretell some years m advance 
the connection between cause and effect”. 
This preliminary statement, made in the summer of 1907, was followed by the full 
report of the Commission above referred to, published in 1909, where the points at issue 
were exhaustively dealt with in a comparative survey by the Commission, and in detail 
by Dr. HELLAND-HANSEN as regards the question of size, and by Dr. Damas with regard 
to composition in point of age (Vide report in Vol. X. Rapports et Proc. Verb.). The 
*) Nogle Resultater av den Internationale Havforskning. Aarsberetning vedk. Norges Fiske- 
rier, 2. Hefte. 1907. 
“Some Results of the International Ocean Researches”, published by the Scottish Oceanogra- 
phical Laboratory, Edinburgh, 1908. 
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