were not, so to speak, impassable from a superfluity of fish? Buffon has said that if a pair of herrings were left to breed and multiply undisturbed for a period of twenty years, they would yield a fish bulk equal to the whole of the globe in which we live! The subject of fish growth—particularly as regards the changes undergone by the salmon family—will be found further elucidated under the head of “Fish Culture,” and incidentally in some other divisions of this work. CHAPTER II. FISH COMMERCE. Early Fish Commerce—Sale of Fresh-water Fish—Cured Fish—Influence of Rapid Transit on the Fisheries—Fish-ponds—The Logan Pond—Ancient Fishing Industries—The Dutch Herring Fishing—Comacchio—the Art of Breeding Eels—Progress of Fishing in Scotland—A Scottish Buss—Newfoundland Fisheries—The Greenland Whale Fishing—Speciality of different Fishing Towns—The General Sea Fisheries of France—French Fish Commerce—Statistics of the British Fisheries. There was a time when man only killed the denizens of the deep in order to supply his own immediate wants, and it is very much to be regretted, in the face of the extensive fish commerce now carried on, that no reliable documents exist from which to write a consecutive history of the rise and progress of fishing. In the absence of precise information, it may be allowed us to guess that even during the far back ages fish was esteemed as an article of diet, and formed an important contribution to the food resources of such peoples as had access to the sea, or who could obtain the finny inhabitants of the deep by purchase or barter. In the Old and New Testaments, and in various ancient profane histories, fish and fishing are mentioned very frequently; and in what may be called modern times a few scattered dates, indicating the progress of the sea fisheries, may, by the exercise of great industry and research, be collected; but these are not in any sense consecutive, or indeed very reliable, so that we are, as it were, compelled to imagine the progress of fish commerce, and to picture in our mind’s eye its transition from the period when the mere satisfaction of individual wants was all that was cared for, to a time when fish began to be bartered for land goods—such as farm, dairy, and garden produce—and to trace, as we best can, that commerce through these obscure periods to the present time, when the fisheries form a prominent outlet for capital, are a large source of national revenue, and are attracting, because of these qualities, an amount of attention never before bestowed upon them.