THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Aug. 1, 1866. 
32 THE FISHERIES OF VICTORIA. 
is of vital importance to retain men acquainted with the fishing grounds, 
tides and currents. House them comfortably, and give them the 
best of rations. Give the single men a comfortable barrack, with a 
cook to look after it, so that they may always be certain of a comfort- 
able meal and dry clothes on coming ashore ; they will thus secure the 
willing services of the best men to be had. A company so begun and 
prudently conducted will, I have no doubt, not only prove most profitable 
to the parties engaged but to the colony generally. 
It is not the business of the government to force this or any other 
industry into existence, but as the fishing-grounds are at our doors, most 
bounteously stocked by Nature, while there are both money and capital 
to be employed upon them, it is the legitimate province of the govern- 
ments of Victoria and Tasmania to clear the way by a survey of the 
coasts and straits. Private individuals cannot be expected to spend their 
capital in making discoveries which at once become public property, as 
fishing banks inevitably do. Where labour is so high it is of great im- 
portance to have the men constantly employed, but until the different 
banks are laid down they cannot be so. The trawlers cannot work in 
anything like a heavy sea, but if they knew of a bank in their neigh- 
bourhood they could with deep-sea line, as long as the vessel 
could hold her own, actually fill the vessel instead of lying-to idle. 
The survey of the bank off Tasinan's Peninsula alone would w r ell 
repay the expense of employing a sixty-ton vessel, which would be 
quite sufficient. There is no doubt that most of the fish come into 
the bays in summer to spawn, and it is most desirable that both 
governments should strictly enforce a close time, and regulate the size 
of the mesh in all nets, trawlers included, as the wanton destruction 
now is most sinful. 
I hope when the Acclimatisation Society has the means that the Council 
will turn their attention to the introduction of the cod and the herring. 
Lieut. Maury, in his ' Physical Geography of the Ocean,' mentions that on 
the portion of the southern States of America touched by the Gulf stream 
on its way northwards, the fish are of bright colour but poor quality, and 
that these southern states are supplied by rail from the states further 
north, wdiose coasts are washed by the cold current which Hows south 
from the Arctic Ocean inside of the Gulf stream. It aj>pears from 
Maury's chart of these seas (No. IX. Seadrift and Whales) that the whole 
of the south coast of New Holland is bathed by the waters of the cold 
Antarctic, so that fish of the finest kind will retain their good qualities. 
The cod is not only a good fish of itself, superior to any of ours, but the salt- 
fish of commerce, and if established in these seas, would greatly facilitate 
the formation of an export trade, and, I think, quite as worthy of atten- 
tion as the saline n. The roe is so exceedingly minute, that more than 
nine millions have been counted in one fish ; being so fine, it would be 
laid among the moss in pieces, and one box might contain twelve 
millions of roe. The sea-water would be sufficiently cold during a great 
