In our country the whale fishery has been a great and prosperous commerce, counted by millions. It has yielded considerable gains, and sometimes large fortunes. The town of New Bedford, one of the most beautiful in the world, has been enriched by this fishery. And yet you cannot fail to remark the impediments which the business has been compelled to overcome. The ship was fitted on the Atlantic coast for a voyage of two or three years, and all the crew entered into partnership with regard to the oil. Traversing two oceans, separated by a stormy cape, it reaches at last its distant destination in these northern seas, and commences its tardy work, interrupted by occasional rest and opportunity to refit at the Sandwich Islands. This now will be changed, as the ship sallies forth from friendly harbors near the game which is its mighty chase.
From the whale fishery I turn to another branch of inquiry. Undoubtedly there are infinite numbers of fish on the coast; but to determine whether they can constitute a permanent and profitable fishery, there are at least three different considerations which must not be disregarded: (1.) The existence of banks or soundings; (2.) Proper climatic conditions for catching and curing fish; (3.) A market.
(1.) The _necessity of banks or soundings_ is according to reason. Fish are not caught in the deep ocean. It is their nature to seek the bottom, where they are found in some way by the fisherman, armed with trawl, seine, or hook. As among the ancient Romans private luxury provided tanks and ponds for the preservation of fish, so Nature provides banks, which are immense fish-preserves. Soundings attest their existence in a margin along the coast; but it becomes important to know if they actually exist to much extent away from the coast. On this point our information is already considerable, if not decisive.
The Sea and Strait of Behring, as far as the Frozen Ocean, have been surveyed by a naval expedition of the United States under Commander John Rodgers. From one of his charts, now before me, it appears, that, beginning at the Frozen Ocean and descending through Behring Strait and Behring Sea, embracing Kotzebue Sound, Norton Bay, and Bristol Bay, to the peninsula of Alaska, a distance of more than twelve degrees, there are constant uninterrupted soundings from twenty to fifty fathoms,--thus presenting an immense extent proper for fishery. South of the peninsula of Alaska another chart shows soundings along the coast, with a considerable extent of bank in the neighborhood of the Shumagins and Kadiak, being precisely where other evidence points to the existence of cod. These banks, north and south of Alaska, taken together, according to indications of the two charts, have an extent unsurpassed by any in the world.