654 FISHEEIES OP THE UNITED STATES. [10] 



of sufficient importance to warrant its full discussion had it not received 

 atten tion in another place.* Suffice it to say that after passing through 

 various changes the clipper fishing schooner of New England is to-day 

 second to none in beauty, speed, equipment, spread of canvas, and 

 ability to carry sail in ordinary weather. Unfortunately, however, in the 

 effort to attain a high rate of speed and great initial stability, so that 

 much sail can be carried with a comparatively small amount of ballast, a 

 rather shallow, extremely sharp vessel has been produced, with great 

 breadt h of beam , u pon which she mainly depends for stability. This form , 

 though it has certain manifest advantages, is nevertheless a dangerous 

 one, and consequently, though we now have much larger vessels than 

 formerly, Ave find that the ratio of loss by fouudgring at sea has in- 

 creased of late years with frightful rapidity. A fruitful source of dis- 

 aster is doubtless the liability of the present type of schooner to cap- 

 size or be tripped by a heavy sea, and its inability to right again, owing 

 to the lack of a low center of gravity and an unusual length and weight 

 of spars. While great and manifest improvements have unquestionably 

 been made in the American fishing schooner, the writer is of the opin- 

 ion — an opinion gained by practical experience as well as by study — 

 that in departing from the relatively deeper craft of a few years ago a 

 serious error has been committed which will not be remedied until a 

 change is made in that direction. A study of the collection of builders' 

 models showing the evolution of the American fishing schooner will 

 enable one to gain a better idea of this subject than can be conveyed 

 in the limited space at our command. 



The fishing fleet possessed by a country plays a more important part 

 in its commercial and naval success than is popularly supposed. The 

 boy or young man who first obtains the rudiments of naval construction 

 while endeavoring to build for himself a boat or larger craft, in which 

 to ply his vocation, may in this manner develop latent mechanical 

 powers which he may possess, and the result of his early training may 

 be the producing of a ship-builder. 



The third remarkable event in the history of the American fishing 

 fleet was the employment of steamers, though steam has not yet taken 

 so prominent a position in our ocean fisheries as one might naturally 

 expect in an age when it has become nearly universal. The extreme 

 swiftness of our sailing vessels, the fact that a large percentage of our 

 ocean food fishes are cured at sea and marketed in a salted condition, 

 the comparative cheapness of sailing craft, and also because they can 

 be kept at sea at far less expense, are causes which, so far, have oper- 

 ated to prevent the employment of steamers in any of the sea fisheries 

 which are carried on at long distances from the land. Attempts have 

 been made to introduce steamers into the winter haddock and the sum- 

 mer mackerel fisheries, but the results obtained were not satisfactory, 



*A description of the fishing vessels and boats of the United States, yet unpublished. 



