The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1908-02-20
SILVER-CLAD ARMIES
OF Vastly DEEPS
SCHOOL OF HERRING rs AN EXCIT-
ING AND INTERESTING
SIGHT.
OCEAN TEEMlNG WITH LIFE.
An Acre of Salt Water Produces as Much
Vegetation as an Acre of
Meadow.
AQUEOUS PASTURES FULL GRAZERS

A trip with the fishermen who 90 to
meet the great armies of herring OH
their leisurely semi-annual migration to
the spawning grounds is revelation in
the way Of affording a conception of the
immense number of these fish, says
Gaspe Basin, Canada, correspondent of
the New York Sun.
| 1t is even exciting to catch a sight
! of the herring school for the first time.
The sea glitters far as the eye can reach
with the reflected sheen from the silver
sided multitude. The air vibrates with
the wings of innumerable gannetS ana
other gulls, swooping as often as appe-
| tite calls to snatch another meal from
the prodigal provision beneath. There
| is splashing, romping fringe on three
! sides of seals, white, pig-like pOrpoiSes,
little blue herring sharks, with now and
then the fuke-like tail of gramOus,
standing bolt upright a dozen feet out
of the water.
| The great curtain nets, as well as the
seines. have to be of the stoutest ma
terials. or they would be, as indeed they
often are smashed by the dead weight
| OF the multitude. The side ropes and
meshes are at certain seasons encrusted
several inches thick with herring spawn,
which gives the water milky appear
ance for miles. But all this does not
| give one such an idea of the amazing size
of these silverclad armies of the sea as
! does a walk on the beach in some OF
the New Brunswick coast counties after
a heavy gale in the spawning time. The
eggs of the herring fall at that season
| through the water, and in gummy clus-
| terS affiX themselves to rocks and stones
at the bottom.
Each one is about a quarter of an
al, o;zo Ix, foiT Sfn
gelatinous slightly horny she'll. These
are often thrown out by heavy gales and
lie upon the shore knee deep. Farmers
busy themselves for days carting these
eggs to their fields, where they form
valuable manure.
Windows of Herring Eggs
An observer in Pleasant Bay, on the
Magdalen islands, reported that the sand
was covered two or three feet deep with
them for several miles" No uninstructed
person could believe that these incredible
masses of marine f1otsam were of animal
origin. There are thousands of tons Of
them, each ton aggregating millions of
potential herrings.
The shoals of herrings are never APP
preciably smaller, in spite of the vast
quantities of spawn thus destroyed by
gales or high tides. Each herring, it has
lately been demonstrated, produces about
alists used to calculate the number as ten
times as great.
The fishermen take thousands of bar
rels Of manure herrings each year. The
lobster fishery alone uses 10000 barrels
for bait; the cod fishery many times that
number. The manufacture of herring
oil disposes of immense numbers also
Each barrel of fish produces nearly three
gallons of oil and a fifth of ton of
expensive fish guanO. Only the best fish
are barrelled for sale.
On the Pacific coast the fish are even
more numerous than on this side of the
continent. In one year one of the Amer
lean companies the Alaska Oil and
Guano company, shipped $4,000 gallons
of herring oil, 1900 tons of guanc and
1872 barrels of choice behring's. This
represented about 10000 barrels of her.
rings Hundreds of thousands of barrels
are taken altogether in American waters
each year.
How these prodigious armies of fish get
their living in the sea has only been
exactly determined during the past few
years. In fact experiments to perfect
the proof are still going on along this
coast.
Vegetation in the Sea.
Following to a logical conclusion the
argument that all animal life depends di-
rectly or indirectly upon the vegetable
kingdom, dragnet composed of the fin
est sort Of boiling cloth used by millers
was drawn slowly behind a steamer
across bay. The result was surprising.
An acre Of salt water, it was discovered,
produces about as much vegetation in a
year as an acre of good meadow land.
One great naturalist has computed
that if one of a countless number of
varying minute organisms was allowed
perfect development without any counter
acting destruction for one month the
product would be a mass Of protoplasm
many times larger than the sun. One
little plant multiplies itself by breaking
in two about FIVE times a day and be-
comes mature in three hours.
An immense number of tiny animals
browse upon this rapidly increasing herb
age, and together with it constitute
plankton, which is the scientific name for
this prepared ration of meat ard green's
dealt out in amazing quantities at ma
lures free lunch counter.
The herring family is provided with
an automatic Straining apparatus of the
utmost fineness whereby as they breathe
the water through their gills they uncon-
sciously sift out their daily food. Thus
they have the happiness of feeding with
out effort and of finding their supplies
without exertion, and thus they stand
at the very apex of idealistic trampdOm.
To one who knows the secret of the
green coloring Of the ocean the wonder
is not how do it's countless animals get
their living, but how the amazing vege-
tation of the plankton can possibly be
kept under, even by the multitudiuous
grazing things which Thong those
aqueous pasturages.