THE GOD . 
267 
The largest example on record measured above seven feet in length, and weighed more than 
three hundred pounds. 
The Halibut is found in all northern seas, south, to France and San Francisco. It reaches 
a weight of 400 pounds. Hr. Storer records an example, on the authority of Mr. Newcomb, a 
noted fishmonger of Boston Market, as weighing 420 pounds, after the head and bowels were 
removed. The Halibut fishing of Grand and George’s Banks is an important industry. 
As an edible it ranks high. Great numbers are taken in Massachusetts Bay. Hr. Storer 
adds, in relation to weight : “The largest specimen of which I have any certain knowledge, 
was taken at New Ledge, near Portland, Maine, in 1807, and weighed upwards of 600 pounds.” 
At Nantucket there were once employed eighty vessels, of from 60 to 80 tons burthen 
each, in this fishery. Ancient names of this fish are Fler, and Helbut. 
A species called Greenland Halibut is found in the northern seas. 
THE COD. 
The well-known Cod-fish is a native of many seas, and in some localities is found in 
countless legions. 
This most useful fish is captured in vast numbers at certain seasons of the year, and is 
always taken with the hook and line. The lines are of two descriptions, namely, the long 
lines to which a great number of short lines are attached, and the simple hand-lines which are 
held by the fishermen. The long lines sometimes run to an extraordinary length, and shorter 
lines, technically called snoods, are affixed to the long line at definite distances. Whatever 
may be the length of the snoods, they are fastened at intervals of double their length, so as to 
guard against the entanglement of the hooks. For example, if the snoods are six feet long, 
they are placed twelve feet apart on the line ; if four feet long, eight feet apart, and so on. 
To the end of each snood is attached a baited hook, and as the sharp teeth of the fish 
might sever a single line, the portion of the snood which is near the hook is composed of a 
number of separate threads fastened loosely together, so as to permit the teeth to pass between 
the strands. At each end of the long line is fastened a float or buoy, and ’when the hooks 
have been baited with sand launce, limpets, whelks, and similar substances, the line is ready 
for action. 
The boat, in which the line is ready coiled, makes for the fishing-place, lowers a grapnel 
or small anchor, to which is attached the buoy at one end of the line, and the vessel then sails 
off, paying out the line as it proceeds, and always “ shooting” the line across the tide, so as to 
prevent the hooks from being washed against each other, or twisted round the line, which is 
usually shot in the interval between the ebb and flow of the tide, and hauled in at the end of 
about six hours. 
As soon as the long line has been fairly shot, and both ends firmly affixed to the grapnels, 
the fishermen improve the next six hours by angling with short lines, one of which is held in 
each hand. They thus capture not only Cod-fish, but haddock, whiting, hake, pollack, and 
various kinds of flat fishes. On favorable occasions, the quantity of fish captured by a single 
boat is very great, one man having taken more than four hundred Cod alone in ten hours. 
The Cod is a most uncertain fish in its habits, sometimes haunting the same locality for a 
number of successive years, and then suddenly leaving it and repairing to some spot where not 
a fish might be found on the preceding year. New fishing-grounds are frequently discovered, 
and it sometimes happens that the fishermen are fortunate enough to alight on a spot hitherto 
untouched, where, to use the graphic description of a sailor, the Cod are “as big as donkeys, 
and as common as blackberries.” 
Rockall, for instance, is one of the discoveries of this nature. It is a sandbank in the North 
Atlantic, about 136 miles from St. Kilda, and only distinguishable by a small rock like a rude 
haystack. The Cod are there so plentiful and so large that each fishing-boat sold her five days’ 
catch for $700 ; and after due preparation, the fish were disposed of at nearly double that price. 
A great part of the estimation in which this fish is held depends upon the perfect manner 
in which it takes salt, and the length of time during which it can be preserved in an eatable 
