Fig. 7.—THE PRINCIPAL FISHERIES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.
Scale 1 : 38,300,000.
Next to the tunny fisheries those of the sardines and anchovies are most important. Sea-urchins and other products of the sea are eaten by the inhabitants of the coasts, particularly in Italy, but there is no part of the Mediterranean where animal life is so abundant and so prodigious in quantity as on the celebrated banks of Newfoundland, or on the coasts of Portugal or of the Canaries.
A large number of fishing-boats are engaged, not in the capture of fish, but in {31} the collection of articles of dress or of the toilet. The purple-shell fisheries on the coasts of Phœnicia, the Peloponnesus, and Greece are no longer carried on, but hundreds of boats are employed annually during the fine season in fishing for coral or sponges.
Coral is found most abundantly in the western portion of the Mediterranean, and the Italian fishermen do not confine themselves to their own shores—to Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia—but also visit the Strait of Bonifacio, the sea off St. Tropez, the vicinity of Cape Creus in Spain, and the waters of Barbary. Ordinary sponges are collected in the Gulf of Gabes, and at the other extremity of the Mediterranean, on the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, and in the straits winding between the Cyclades and Sporades. Sponges are usually found at a depth of from 12 to 150 feet, and can be gathered by divers; whilst coral occurs at far greater depths, and has to be wrenched off with an iron instrument, which brings up its fragments, mixed with ooze, seaweeds, and the remains of marine animalculæ. This industry is still in a state of barbarism: those devoted to it are not as yet sufficiently acquainted with the sea and its inhabitants to enable them to carry on the sponge and coral fisheries in a rational manner. Yet this they must aim at: they must learn how to deprive Proteus, the ever-changing deity, of his dominion over the inhabitants of the deep.
Next to the fisheries, the preparation of sea salt constitutes one of the leading industries of the Mediterranean coast-lands. But this industry, too, is frequently carried on in a primitive way, and only in the course of the present century have scientific methods been introduced in connection with it. The Mediterranean is admirably suited for the production of salt, for its waters have a high temperature, they hold a very large quantity of salt in solution, the rise and fall of the tides are inconsiderable, and flat seashores alternate with steep coasts and promontories. The most productive salt marshes of the Mediterranean are probably those on the Lagoon, or Étang de Thau, near Cette, and on the littoral of Hyères; but considerable ones may also be met with on the coasts of Spain, in Italy, in Sardinia, Sicily, Istria, and even on the “limans” of Bessarabia, bordering upon the Black Sea. The annual production of salt is estimated at more than a million tons, and exceeds, therefore, the entire tonnage of the commercial marine of France.[10] But this quantity, large as it is, is infinitesimal if we compare it with the saline contents of the sea, and science will enable us one day to raise a far more abundant treasure from its sterile depths.[11]
III.—COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.
Whatever advantages may be yielded by fisheries and salt-works, they shrink into insignificance if we compare them with the great gain—material, intellectual, {32} and moral—which mankind has derived from the navigation of this inland sea. It has repeatedly been pointed out by historians that the disposition of the coasts, islands, and peninsulas of the Mediterranean of the Phœnicians and Greeks admirably favoured the first essays in maritime commerce. Many causes have contributed to make this sea the cradle of European commerce: the faint summits of distant lands visible even before the port has been quitted; numerous nooks along the coasts where a safe refuge may be found in case of storms; regular land and sea breezes; an equability of climate which makes the sailor feel at home wherever business takes him; and, moreover, a great variety of productions resulting from the diverse configuration of the Mediterranean coast-lands. And this commerce, does it not lead to a peaceful intercourse between peoples on neutral ground, and to mutual enlightenment, brought about by an interchange of ideas? Every coast-line which facilitates the intercourse between nations is, therefore, of immense value as a means of developing civilisation.
Civilisation for many centuries marched from the south-east towards the north-west, and Phœnicia, Greece, Italy, and France have successively become great centres of human intelligence. This historical phenomenon is due to the configuration of the sea, which has been the vehicle of migratory nations. In fact, the axis of civilisation, if this expression be allowed, has become confounded with that axis of the Mediterranean which extends from the coast of Syria to the Gulf of Lions, on the coast of France. But the Mediterranean has ceased to be the only centre of gravitation of Europe, which sends its merchantmen now to the two Americas and the farthest East; and civilisation no longer marches in that general line from east to west, but rather radiates in all directions. Civilising streams depart from England and Germany towards Northern America, and from the Latinised countries of Europe towards Southern America. Their direction is still westerly, but they have been deflected towards the south, to meet the conditions imposed by climate and the geographical configuration of land and sea.