THE COMMON COD. l^S 



the weight of the fish, and the great coldness of the 

 climate. 



As soon as the Cod are caught, the heads are cut 

 off; they are opened, gutted and salted : they are 

 then stowed in the hold of the vessel, in beds five or 

 six yards square, head to tail, with a layer of salt to 

 each layer of fish. When they have lain here three 

 or four days to drain off the water, they are shifted 

 into a different part of the vessel, and again salted. 

 Here they remain till the vessel is loaded. Some- 

 times they are cut into thick pieces, and packed in 

 barrels, for the greater convenience of carriage. 



Cod are taken by the natives of Norway, off their 

 own coast, in strong pack-thread nets. These have 

 meshes four inches square, and are about a fathom 

 or fifteen meshes deep, and twenty fathom long. 

 They use, according to the weather, from eighteen 

 to twenty-four of these nets joined, so that they have 

 sometimes upwards of four hundred fathom of net 

 out at a time. They fish in from fifty to seventy fa- 

 thom water, and mark the places of the nets by- 

 means of buoys. The afternoon is the time when 

 the nets are generally set ; and, on taking them in 

 on the following morning, it is no uncommon thing 

 to obtain three or four hundred fine Cod *. 



In the Newfoundland fishery, the sounds or air- 

 bladders are taken out previously to incipient putre- 

 faction, washed from their slime, and salted for ex- 

 portation. The tongues are also cured, and brought 

 in barrels containing four or five hundred pounds 



* Pontoppidan, part ii. p. 158. 



K 4 



