Lobster steamers, fitted up with tanks containing salt water, run from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to Boston and New York. Here those not wanted are placed on cars containing similar tanks and sent to interior cities. In this way fresh lobsters are served thousands of miles from where they were caught.
A lobster that would cost us from twenty-five to seventy-five cents brings the fisherman not more than ten cents.
Along our New England coast there are many towns engaged extensively in fishing. Portland, Gloucester, Boston, and Provincetown are among the number. Gloucester is the most important fishing town in the United States. From it fishing schooners go as far as Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and even to the coast of Ireland. There are also important fisheries on the Pacific coast, from San Francisco to Alaska. Here the salmon are taken in great numbers. They weigh from twenty to one hundred pounds. The fish are canned and shipped to all parts of the country. Besides being caught in nets and traps and on lines many are caught in "fish wheels." These are fastened to the stern of a boat and revolve in the water. The fish are caught in pockets and dropped in the boat as the wheel brings them up over it.
There are very extensive fisheries along the shores of the British Isles and on the western coast of Europe. Fishing is the chief industry in the towns along the coast of Norway. The air is full of the odor of fish, while drying fish, nets, and boats are everywhere in sight.
Although the supply of fish in the ocean is very great, it is diminishing, especially near the shore. Most countries now pay considerable attention to the raising of both fresh and salt water fishes, and they have passed laws regulating fishing. Eggs are hatched in great hatcheries, from which the young fish are taken where they are most needed.
The great ocean is free to all to sail over or fish in at will. There is a narrow strip along the shore three miles wide, which belongs to the country which it borders. The men of other countries are not allowed to fish there.
The fisherman is a brave and sturdy man. His life is full of danger. He battles constantly with the winds and the waves. Fogs may hide the sharp rocks which seem to wait for a chance to destroy his little vessel. Sometimes icebergs or great ocean steamers sink his boat and he is never seen again.
When storms are raging and night has settled over sea and land, and angry waves are dashing themselves into foam against the shore, the mothers, wives, and children look anxiously from their cottage windows toward the sea, and pray that their loved ones may return to them in safety.