1879. | Notes on Pacific Coast Fishes and Fisheries. 687 
Alaska cod-fishery are often six hundred fathoms or three thou- 
sand feet long, and bear on each side a row of hooks at every 
half fathom, or thereabouts. The dried fish are sorted into three 
sizes, the largest are put up in wooden cases, the next size in 
bundles, while the small fishes are divested of their skin, vertebra 
and fins, cut in halves, and packed in cases under the name of 
“boneless cod-fish.” The fishery is about fifteen years old, and 
at this time about thirteen vessels are engaged in it; the smaller 
fore-and-aft rigged vessels are principally used in Alaskan waters, 
while the larger square-rigged vessels run to the Sea of Okkotsk. 
The schooners employed at the Sheumagin islands often make two 
or three trips in the season. About two hundred and fifty hands 
are usually employed by this industry. The fishermen are paid 
a fixed sum per thousand fish. At Kadak natives are engaged 
to head, split and salt the fish, earning from seventy-five cents to 
one dollar per day. A few years ago the dried fish were worth 
nine cents per pound, but at the present time the best quality is 
worth only four cents. 
The Alaska cod-fish is first met with in Puget sound and its 
vicinity, but becomes more abundant farther north. Although 
the principal fishing grounds are the Sea of Okkotsk and the 
Sheumagin islands, extensive banks exist elsewhere, and local 
fisheries are carried on at various points in Vancouver island, 
British Columbia, and along the coast of Alaska, as, for example, 
at Wrangel. Neither the oil from the livers, the sounds or the 
tongues are at present utilized. In the stomachs of those opened, 
various kinds of small fish and squids are stated to have been 
found. The fishery is at present only in its infancy, its limited. 
extent is not in any way due to the scarcity of the fish but to the 
struggle that has to be maintained with the eastern article, which 
has so far successfully excluded the Pacific fish from the regions 
east of the Sierras. 
The same may be said of the halibut fishery. The fish is 
abundant in the northern ‘waters and attains a large size, but 
though small quantities have been smoked and canned, the article 
cannot successfully compete, even in California, with that from 
the Atlantic. 
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