Aug. 1 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 
THE FISHERIES OF VICTORIA. 29 
QueensclifF, which now yields, during the summer, about 250 tons of 
schnapper alone, there is a bank outside where they can be caught at all 
times of the year. There is also an 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 is now known, 
supply a large fishery. It has been ascertained that l lie banks extend- 
ing to the eastward of King's Island, Rabbit Island, and Corner Inlet, 
besides soles, butter-fish, Jew-fish, and others, abound in flounders of 
l-'.tge size and of the finest quality ; and, as the Straits average less than 
forty -five fathoms, and with much sand and shell bottom, most favour- 
able 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 
below water, giving food and shelter, and forming banks for winter 
fishing as richly stocked as that to the eastward of Western Port. In 
the Straits the king-fish 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 fiesh cod, and traversed by every steamer passing be- 
tween Hobart Town and Melbourne, so that it is as much Melbourne as 
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 shell and seaweed, and where the food is the mouths will 
be there to eat it. How universally animal life is disseminated in the>e 
seas was proved by the wreck of a French whaler, which came ashore 
to the east and west of Portland in 1848. 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 mussels, &c, while 
the broken parts were perfectly fresh, showing that she had laid in 
still water till moved by some current or very deep commotion of the 
water, on the ground within reach of the surface waves. There is, in 
fact, every reason 10 believe that we have, under the waters as exten- 
sive 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 
