FISHES. 615 
among sailors, includes the coast of New England, Cape Breton, 
Nova Scotia, and, above all, the island of Newfoundland, on the south 
coast of which is the famous sand-bank called the Great Bank, having 
a length of nearly 200 leagues, with a breadth. of sixty-two, over 
which flows from ten to fifteen fathoms of water. Here the cod-fish 
swarm, for here they meet shoals of herrings and other animals, on 
which they feed. Such is, according to Lacépéde, the geographical 
distribution of the cod-fish. 
Fig. 391.—The Cod-fish (Morrhua vulgaris). 
The English, French, Dutch, and Americans devote themselves 
to the cod-fishery on the bank of Newfoundland with inconceivable 
ardour. ‘This island was discovered and visited by the Norwegians 
in the tenth and eleventh centuries, long before the discovery of 
America; but it was only in 1497, after the discoveries of Columbus, 
that the navigator, John Cabot, having visited these regions, gave it 
the name by which it has since been known, and called attention to. 
swarms of cod-fish which inhabited the surrounding sea. Immediately 
after, the English and some other nations hastened to reap these 
