Marvels of the Unseen 281 



fish that is so prolific that its surplus billions must 

 needs come here to be disposed of, lest they should 

 become too numerous and create a famine in the sea. 

 Moving in almost solid masses across the banks in 

 certain given directions, feeding themselves upon the 

 myriads of minor creatures with which the sea is 

 everywhere teeming, they are met by the Cod, who 

 quietly work their way through the shoals eating, 

 eating, ever eating. 



What a wonderful sight it must be, could anybody 

 but witness it, that mass of life, those square miles 

 of closely arrayed food fishes moving slowly from 

 point to point over the swarming surfaces of those 

 submarine plateaux ! Conceive, if you can, how in- 

 finitesimally small, in comparison with the area in- 

 habited by the Cod, is the space occupied by the whole 

 of the fishing fleet, would be the room taken up by 

 all the fishing fleets of the world could they be collected 

 there. As for the diminution in their numbers made 

 by man, it is so trivial by comparison with those 

 numbers, nay by comparison with the toll levied upon 

 them by enemies of their own sphere, that it is not 

 worth taking into account. For the area covered 

 by the hosts of fish is so great, and the point fished 

 by even a fleet of vessels is so infinitely small by com- 

 parison, that the capture of any at all shows how closely 

 crowded they must be down there in the unseen. 

 And if the united catch of all the fleet for one year 

 were put together it would probably be less than the 

 number of fish swimming at any given time during 

 the season within the area of one square mile. 



The ' Bank ' fishery, as it is called, is an intensely 

 romantic, highly dangerous and terribly hard calling. 

 Readers of Captains Courageous will probably have 

 realised that to the full, as far as reading vivid descrip- 



