50 



echnapper alone, there is a bank outside where they can be caught 

 at all times of the year. There is also one immense bank extending 

 S. and E. from the eastern entrance of Western Port swarming with 

 schnapper, rock-cod, and other fine fish, that would of itself, even as 

 far as now known, supply a large fishery. It has been ascertained 

 that the banks extending to the eastward of King's Island, Babbit 

 Island, and Corner Inlet, besides soles, butter-fish, jew-fish, and 

 others, abound in flounders of large size and of the finest quality ; 

 and as the Straits average less than forty-five fathoms, and with 

 much sand and shell bottom, most favourable for trawling, we only 

 require proper boats to give us as ample a supply in winter as in 

 summer. In a strait between such rocky coasts as this and Van 

 Diemen's land, with islands cropping up in every direction, there 

 must be extensive areas of rocky and broken ground helow water, 

 giving both food and shelter, and forming banks for winter fishing 

 as richly stocked as that to the eastward of Western Port. In the 

 Straits the kingfish and barracouta are in large shoals, and might be 

 caught in quantities infinitely greater than at present. Again, on 

 the south and east of Van Diemen's Land there is a bank covered 

 by the waters of the cold Southern Ocean, cold enough for the finest 

 quality of fish, with which it swarms, and of sufficient extent to 

 supply all the Australian colonies over and over again. This bank 

 is known to extend from twenty-five to thirty miles from the end 

 of Maria Island to Tasman's Peninsula — how much further is 

 unknown. It abounds with trumpeter, running up to sixty and 

 eighty pounds ; arbouca, also a large fish, rock-cod, schnappers, 

 flounders, and many other fish of fine quality. This bank is 

 as near Melbourne as the banks that supply London with fresh 

 cod, and traversed by every steamer passing between Hobart Town 

 and Melbourne, so that it is almost as much a Melbourne as a Hobart 

 Town fishing-ground. We have, in fact, sufficient data to prove 

 that the deep waters off the coast are teeming with life. Fish have 

 been found everywhere; and the entire bottom, where sounded, is 

 mixed with shells and seaweed, and where the food is the mouths 

 will be there to eat it. How universally animal life is disseminated 

 in these seas was proved by the wreck of a French whaler, which 

 came ashore to the east and west of Portland in l!S48. She left 

 Adelaide to fill up, and was never heard of for years, when she came 

 ashore in pieces, the wood exposed to the water being covered deeply 

 with muscles, &c, while the broken parts were perfectly fresh, 

 showing that she had lain in still water till moved by some current 

 or very deep commotion of the water, on to ground within reach of 

 the surface waves. There is, in fact, every reason to believe that 

 we have under the waters as extensive a field for the profitable 

 exertion of our energies as we have on the land, though hitherto left 

 as utterly useless and unprofitable as were our pastures before a 

 white man trod upon them. Second, the Capitalists. — These will 

 be of two descriptions — first, individuals or companies with consider- 



