The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1902-03-27
THE AMOUNT OF FISH LIFE.
Scientists Figuring whether tho Sea Can
30 Fished Out.


Can the sea be fished 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 1t 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
turc's fish supply has long been con-
sidered by many. well qualified to
judge, as not only possible, but proba-
bic; and that, compared with its extent,
the ccecn is desert, Sahara, with
few oases 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
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
jcct, 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 Expedl-
tion, under the direction Of DIR. Hort,
will go far toward tightening the labors
of the commission. According to DIR.
Hjort, the reason for the fear of the
exhaustion of the sea fisheries rests
OF 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 vicin-
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-fishes
in immeasurable quantities, not dead.
as 1t 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 year ago. 1t was thought
tnat they were only to be found quite
ilshore near the coasts, as that was
the only place they had been found.
Gut 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
cut in the open sea, where it 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 barrcn 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
ni1cance 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 receding, un-
I'll they have to fish for them at over
900 feet for them in December.-Ear-
per's Weekly.