16 FISHING GROUNDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



both their herring and capelin bait, but the Americans preserve theirs in ice. The herring remain 

 on this coast more or less through the capelin season and generally all summer ; but while the 

 latter flsh are on the herring fisheries of Fortune and Placentia Bays are more or less neglected, 

 many of the fishermen of those regions limiting themselves chiefly to supplying the French 

 fishermen with capelin. 



The American vessels generally obtain their supplies of capelin north of Cape Race, where 

 the method of capture and preservation is the same as at the south. Placentia Bay is resorted 

 to by American vessels for both herring and capelin bait, but is visited for this purpose much 

 less than Fortune Bay and other localities. Squid are taken for bait in Placentia Bay and other 

 places along the south coast, but, as a rule, the American vessels obtain their squid bait from the 

 bays and harbors on the east side of the island. A species of turbot was formerly taken in 

 considerable numbers in Fortune Bay and vicinity during the winter season from 1855 to 1875. 

 They were generally frozen and sold to the captains of American vessels, who in turn sold them 

 at New Tork and Boston. Since the decline of the frozen-herring trade in this region, 

 comparatively few American vessels visit it in the winter season, and the turbot industry has 

 ceased, for a time at least, although the flsh are probably as abundant now as at any previous time. 



4. THE GULF OF SAINT LAWRENCE. 



General Account.— Fully one-half of the area of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, including the 

 bays and channels leading into it, has a depth of water less than sixty fathoms. This shallow 

 portion, which borders the northern and eastern shores of the Gulf to a distance of from six to 

 ten miles from land, but which comprises all the southwestern third at least, forms a more or less 

 continuous fishing-ground of great value and importance. Of late years, as the fisheries of the 

 outer banks and the Gulf of Maine have been more and more developed. United States vessels 

 have resorted to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence much less than in times past, and we are now 

 rapidly becoming independent of this once much coveted fishing-ground. 



The western coast fishing-grounds of Newfoundland, from Cape Bauld to Cape Ray, according 

 to Prof. H. Y. Hind, constitute a boat-fishing area for cod nearly four hundred miles long by about 

 three miles deep. The rights of this fishery belong to the French by treaty, a privilege also 

 enjoyed throughout most of its extent by citizens of the United States. A similar fishing-ground, 

 though of less importance, borders the northern coast of the gulf and the island of Anticosti. 

 Places worthy of note along this shore are the Natashquan cod-bank and the Mingan Islands. 

 This group of very small islands lies between the western end of Anticosti and the north shore, 

 and between the meridians of 63'^ and 64° west longitude. About sixteen islets, the largest not 

 over five miles long, with a number of small rocky spots, are marked out on the admiralty chart 

 as composing the Mingan Islands. Their distance from land varies from two to seven miles, the 

 depth of water among and about them varying from four to forty-seven fathoms. They are scat- 

 tered irregularly, the bottom between them consisting of sand, gravel, rocks, and shells. 



The southwestern portion of the Gulf furnishes by far the most extensive and important 

 fishing-grounds. The area within the limits of the sixty-fathom line reaches about one hundred 

 and eighty miles eastward from the coast of New Brunswick and about one hundred and forty 

 miles northward of Nova Scotia, and includes the well-known Magdalen Islands and Bradelle 

 Bank. 



There is great uniformity in the depth of water and the character of the bottom nearly 

 everywhere, the bottom being generally rocky and diversified with areas of greater or less extent 

 of sand, gravel, or mud. 



