The suburban citizen., 1902-03-29
THE AMOUNT OF FISH LIFE.
Scientists Figuring whether the Sea Can
BE Fished Out.


BE Fished out.
Can the sea be tished out? An effort
is being made to work out this problem
by an international committee of biol
ogists appointed for that and other pur-
poses. Until very recently it has gen
orally been supposed that immense as
is the amount of fish life existing in
the sea there is certain maximum
beyond which nature cannot go, GER
tain balance on which man can draw
which she places TO his credit in GER
tain banks, limited both in number and
extent To make an overdraft on ma
tures fish supply has long been con-
sidered by many, we'll qualified to
judge, as not only possible, but proba-
BILE; anj that. compared with its extent,
the ocean is a desert, a Sahara, with
few GASES on which alone fish life is
possible. Further, they say these oases
are not only limited in extent but In
their capability for supporting fish life,
and that they are at the mercy of man
because they are confined to the COM
paratively shallow waters near the
coast on which he lives.
Only Of recent years has the subject
of marine biology been studied on any
systemiZed plan and with definite OBJ
ject, but now the North Sea has been
mapped out for observation by the
interested biologists, and it is certain
that we shall learn many things that
we did not know, and have to unlearn
many things which we thought we
knew TO be facts, but which have
proved to be fallacies.
The results Of the recent researches
of the Norwegian Biological Expedi-
ton, under the direction of DR.. HORT,
will go far toward tightening the labors
of the commission. According to DR..
Hjort, the reason for the fear Of the
exhaustion Of the sea fisheries rests
on incorrect theories, due chiefly to the
results Of scientific investigation OF
the last forty years. Hitherto the
belief prevailed that the millions Of
eggs produced by our sea foolish
are forced by the currents to the vicln-
ity Of the coasts where the nets of the
trawlers sweep them up and destroy
them. On the contrary, DR.. Hjort
found the brood of all our fOod-hshes
in immeasurablc quantities, not dead.
as it ought to be in theory, but alive
and spread over the whole Of the
Norwegian Sea. That the young Of cod
and haddock could live out in the open
sea would have been considered i'm
possible q year ago. 1t was thought
that they were only 10 be found quite
inshore near the coasts, as that was
the only place they had been found.
But it was not only fish brood that
DR.. Hjort found in his investigations
of the North Sea. He made the fur
ther remarkable discovery that away
out in the open sea, where 1t is several
thousand feet in depth, he found fish
as it were, in layers, or ocean strata.
There, in these still and dark and hith-
erto barren regions of the sea, he
caught great cod and haddock and coal
fish in quantities. The Importance Of
this discovery is that it proves that
not only brood fish, but mature fish
also. exist out in the ocean, and that
what have been looked upon as typical
ground fish" and "local Sorts" are to
be found at other places as well as
near the coasts. Not Of the least sig
nifcance is the finding Of cod in the
deep places Of the sea, as in this dis
covery we have the key to solve the
mystery as to where the cod abides
when he withdraws from the coasts.
The fishermen on the Newfoundland
coast find the fish in April in the shall
low water near shore, and use lines
thirty or forty feet, increasing the
depth as they find the fish receCing, I'M
til they have to fish for them at over
900 feet fer them in December.-Ear-
per's Weekly.