284 LABRADOR 
than an equally heavy fish from the French banks. In 
Europe, fresh cod is regarded as best for table use when 
caught in the coldest months, December to February. 
The relatively high nutritive value of the Newfoundland- 
Labrador fish is probably to be explained in large part. 
by the fact that all the year round the sea temperatures are 
at least as low as those which bring the European cod into 
best condition. 
The fish can be preserved in wet bulk all winter by putting 
enough salt between adjacent layers to prevent them from 
touching one another. It may also be preserved as dry 
bulk in piles covered over and well pressed down. But 
the fish may be cured by no other means whatever than by 
splitting open the carcass and hanging it up in the sun to 
dry. Many of the ancient, foreign names for the animal 
have apparently been derived from the fact that from times 
immemorial the flesh of the drying split fish has been 
made tenderer by beating the carcass with clubs. The 
Norwegians call the animal the “stock” (stick) fish; in 
Spanish it is ‘‘baccalhao” (from Lat. baculum, a staff, rod, 
or small stick); in Italian, ‘‘mazza”’ (a club); in Gaelic, 
“oad” (rod). The Greeks called the fish “bacchi” (rods). 
In English the name “stock-fish” covers the haddock, 
ling, and hake, as well as the cod. The Labrador Eskimo 
always preserve cod by hard drying without salt. The 
white man, of course, has devised his own methods of curing 
the cod by smoking it like the salmon, or of turning it as 
steaks or in boneless rolls, ready for immediate use, but the 
commonest method is still that by dry salting, as it has been 
for so many centuries. Since these many virtues as a food- 
fish must be multiplied by the inconceivable numbers of 
