Fish Oils and the Fisheries connected therewith. 2 r 7 



these fish alone are employed, they are heated up to 

 130° in water, having about one and a half inches in 

 depth over them. After 15 or 20 minutes, on being 

 stirred, the froth rises, and the oil is skimmed off into large 

 vessels, in which state it is sold as fish oil. There is no 

 washing of the livers — fresh or semi-putrid, bloody or 

 clean, they all are put in the pot, and the oil undergoes no 

 straining. 



A large quantity of oil is also procured in India from 

 sardines, and especially from the " louar " (Clupea 

 Neohowii), which is obtained from August to November, 

 and then treated with boiling water to separate the oil 

 which floats. Oil is also obtained from the livers of seve- 

 ral Siliiroids, but it is only during January and February 

 that the organs are rich enough in fatty matter to be 

 remunerative. The oil sardine seems to form the basis of 

 all the oil obtained in India, for if not prepared from it, a 

 great amount is from the sharks and other fish who live 

 upon them. But the oil sardine is very capricious as to its 

 arrival and departure. In 1864 the enormous quantity of 

 148,206 cwts. of fish oil was shipped from the port of Cochin. 

 In 1865 still larger exports were made. During the next five 

 years scarcely anything was done in the trade; but in 1871 

 the shoals of fish reappeared as abundantly as ever, and 

 with these shoals the sharks returned. When the sardine 

 fish first arrive they are lean, but by October, and some- 

 times before, they become fat, and are well adapted for ex- 

 tracting oil from. They are captured either by long float- 

 nets, attached at either end to a boat, and by making a 

 circuit the shoal is surrounded ; or else several canoes put off 

 together, and pull to a shoal of these fish, which they take 

 by cast-nets. A boat-load of sardines is computed to hold 

 14,000. 



