59 
schnapper 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, Rabbit 
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 laud, with islands cropping up in every direction, there 
must bo extensive areas of rocky and broken ground below 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 Pcuiusula—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 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 muscles, Ac., while the broken parts wore 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- 
