The Commercial Products of the Sea: Or, Marine Contributions to Food, Industry, and ArtGriffith and Farran, 1879 - 484 pages |
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abundant amber American animal annually appearance average Bahamas bait banks barrels beads beautiful boats boiled cameos carried catch caught chiefly China Chinese coast Cochin China collected colour commerce coral cowries crabs cured depth divers diving dried employed England esteemed Exhibition export fathoms feet fish oil fishermen fishery flesh France French fresh gelatine hook important inches Indian isinglass islands kilogrammes kinds large quantities length lines liver lobsters London Lowestoft mackerel manufacture marine Mediterranean menhaden molluscs mother-of-pearl mother-of-pearl shells nacreous natives nets North Norway obtained ornaments papier-mâché pearl oyster picul pieces pilchards placed polished ports pound prepared purposes rivers round salmon salt sardines season seaweed sent shark shells shipped shore skin sold species spermaceti sponge Spongia substance supply surface taken tons tortoiseshell trade trepang tunny turtle variety various vessels weighing West yield
Popular passages
Page 4 - ... as the former is poorly so. In all parts of the world a rocky and partially protected shore perhaps supports, in a given space, a greater number of individual animals than any other station. There is one marine production, which, from its importance, is worthy of a particular history. It is the kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera. This plant grows on every rock from low-water mark to a great depth, both on the outer coast and within the channels...
Page 8 - The most frequented fishing-grounds are much more prolific of food than the same extent of the richest land. Once in the year an acre of good land, carefully tilled, produces a ton of corn, or two or three cwt.
Page 17 - Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay, With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft Bank the mid sea...
Page 424 - ... in the ancient mounds of Ohio.* The latter fact, indeed, is of great interest in its bearing on the extent of former aboriginal trade-relations, the distance from the Pacific to the State of Ohio being almost equal to the whole breadth of the North American continent.t PEARLS. Perforated pearls, destined to serve as beads, often form a part of the contents of ancient North American mounds. Squier and Davis found them on the hearths of five distinct groups of mounds in Ohio, and sometimes in such...
Page 8 - ... of meat or cheese. The same area at the bottom of the sea, on the best fishing grounds, yields a greater weight of food to the persevering fisherman every week in the year. Five vessels, belonging to the same owner, in a single night's fishing, brought in 17 tons weight of fish — an amount of wholesome food equal in weight to that of 50 cattle or 300 sheep.
Page 425 - Monuments, p. 232 saw among the Indians of the parts traversed by them. Pearls, however, belonged to the things most desired by the Spaniards, and the accounts relating to them, perhaps, may be somewhat exaggerated. The following passage from...
Page 122 - It begins to retire from the coast in September. " During violent gales of wind," says Mr. Cormack, " hundreds of tons of them are often thrown up together in beds on the flat beaches, the decay of which spreads an intolerable effluvium around.
Page 182 - These are the larvae destined to perpetuate the species. When arrived at maturity, they are washed out by the sea-water which incessantly flows through the sponge ; they then swim along, by the aid of the vibrating cilia or hairs with which they are provided, until they reach a suitable rock, to which they attach themselves, and there commence a new life.
Page 18 - China; every variety of net, from vast seines, embracing miles, to the smallest handlallet in the care of a child. Fishing by night and fishing by day; fishing in moonlight, by torchlight, and in utter darkness ; fishing in boats of all sizes ; fishing by those who are stationary on the rock by the seaside, and by those who are absent for weeks on the wildest of seas ; fishing by cormorants ; fishing by divers ; fishing with lines, with baskets, by every imaginable decoy and device.
Page 300 - European seas, in larce beds, whence they are dredged up, and pickled and barrelled for sale. This, we are told, is the shell which was formerly worn by pilgrims on the hat or coat, as a mark that they had crossed the sea, for the purpose of paying their devotions at the Holy Land ; in commemoration of which it is still preserved in the arms of many families. O.