NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. 35 
ing interests are strung all along shore; the low-lying, barren 
rocks, the fleets of vessels in the little harbors, and the drifting 
icebergs, diversifying the otherwise forbidding landscape, divides 
the attention of the observer. 
In 1860 this industry employed some 1,500 souls. Now, 
twenty years later, it includes 5,000 persons, a nearly quadru- 
ple increase ; which is significant, not only from a commercial 
and financial standpoint, but encouraging as respects any appre- 
hensions which may have existed as to the ultimate extinction of 
the fish and the failure of the fisheries. 
In 1860 there were but few permanent residents. There were 
few men hardy enough to brave the rigors and isolation of a nine 
months’ winter, and the constant deprivations which the absence 
of almost any kind of communication with the rest of the world 
entailed. Aside from the vessels of the fishing-fleets, their only 
visitors were occasional trading-schooners, which dropped in 
clandestinely to pick up furs and any chance merchantable com- 
modities, in exchange for meagre assortments of indifferent goods 
at exorbitant prices. The arrival of an excursion party was an 
event long to be talked of and remembered. 
Now, and especially since the establishment of an efficient 
Government Fishery Commission, there are regular supply ships, 
as well as a coast-guard steamer, which keep up frequent stated 
_ communication in the open season, and afford timely provision 
against distress during those months when the coast is hermeti- 
cally locked and sealed. Under these improved conditions of ex- 
istence, with their added comforts, and the assurance of relief 
when the fisheries fail and assistance is needed, a large permanent 
population has been invited, which must contribute very much to 
the development of the fisheries by furnishing those mechanical 
apphances which could not be profitably employed when they 
had to be transported annually to the fishing-grounds by the fish- 
__ing-vessels themselves. | 
There are several varieties of cod, but this paper has only to 
_ do with the shore-fish of the East Atlantic. Their range is from 
_ Cape Cod to the Arctic seas. They generally strike into the 
_ Gulf of St. Lawrence in May; and the voyager bound to the 
“norrud,” who has succeeded in working his vessel through the 
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