Kadiak, twenty-live miles east of St. Paul. The slioalest water 
obtained on this bank by this expedition was forty-five fathoms, 
in lat. 58° 15, long. 149° 42. It is fair to assume that this 
bank extends along the south-east shore of Kadiak, as incidental 
and unconnected observations indicate.”— Davidson. 
Here we find a vast nursery of commerce — Behring Sea, 
Unimak, and the Portlock banks, comprising over 100,000 square 
miles of available fishing grounds, greater than those in the 
German Ocean and all the known banks in the North Atlantic, 
including those fringing the British Islands, Shetlands, Faroes, 
Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Gulf of St. Law- 
rence, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the New England 
States. On every part of this vast area, plump, solid, sweet 
cod may be taken as fast as they can be dressed and kenched. 
“ The bank where trial was first made for fish was found on the 
fifteenth of September, during a prevalence of thick weather. 
We fortunately seized an opening and obtained good observa¬ 
tions for longitude, with an approximate latitude; the position 
is in lat 53° 35, long. 164° 10, and near it soundings were ob¬ 
tained in fifty fathoms of water, the lead bringing up sand and 
a small starfish. With thick, drizzly weather, the vessel drifted 
to the north-west by the compass, until sixty fathoms were struck, 
with sandy, pebbly bottom ; here the lead-line was baited, and 
while on the bottom the first cod took the hook. The fish proved 
very plenty, fat, and bit eagerly; frequently two were brought 
up on a double-hooked line, and sometimes three were brought 
up on a line with three hooks. The largest measured thirty- 
seven inches in length, and several reached thirty-six inches. 
The finest was thirty-six inches long, twenty-three inches girt, 
and weighed twenty-seven pounds, was very fat, and certainly 
of as fine, if not finer, flavor than cod we had eaten eleven 
months before, freshly caught on the south coast of Newfound¬ 
land. The vessel drifted all the afternoon over this bank with 
the same depth of water, the fish biting well, although they ap¬ 
peared in capital condition, their maws being full of food, such 
as squid, halibut-liead, fish the size of a herring, sea lice, &c.” 
—* Davidson. 
Halibut are found on these banks ; they are smaller than those 
found in the North Atlantic. On a small patch near the island 
of Sanak, west of'the Shumagins, they are found abundantly 
and much larger than those taken in the adjacent waters ; in some 
