FISHERY, dry cod. The principal fish ery for dry cod is from Cape Rose to the Bay des Exports, along the coast of Pla centia, in which compass there are divers commodious ports for the fish to be dried in. These, though of the same kind with the fresh cod, are much smaller, and therefore fitter to keep, as the salt pene trates more easily into them. The fishe ry of both is much alike, only this latter is more expensive, as it takes up more time, and employs more hands, and yet scarce half so much salt is spent in this as in the other. The bait is herrings, of which great quantities are taken on the coast of Placentia. When several vessels meet, and intend to fish in the same port, he whose shallop first touches ground becomes entitled to the quality and privi leges of admiral: he has the choice of his station, and the refusal of all the wood on the coast at his arrival. As fast as the masters arrive, they unrig all their ves sels, leaving nothing but the shrouds to sustain the masts, and in the mean time the mates provide a tent on shore, cover ed with branches of trees, and sails over them, with a scaffold of great trunks of pines, twelve, fifteen, sixteen, and often twenty feet high, commonly from forty to sixty feet long, and about one third as much in breadth. While the scaffold is preparing, the crew are fishing, and as fast as they catch they bring their fish ashore ; open and salt them upon move able benches ; but the main salting is per formed on the scaffold. When the fish have taken salt, they wash and hang them to drain on rails; when drained, they are laid on kinds of stages, which are small pieces of wood laid across, and covered with branches of trees, having the leaves stripped off for the passage of the air. On these stages they are dispos
ed, a fish thick, head against tail, with the back uppermost, and are turned care, fully four times every twenty-four hours. When they begin to dry, they are laid in heaps ten or twelve thick, in order to re tain their warmth ; and every day the heaps are enlarged, till they become dou ble their first bulk ; then two heaps are joined together, which they turn every day as before ; lastly, they are salted again, beginning with those first salted, and being laid in huge piles, they remain in that situation till they are carried on hoard the MAps, where they are laid on the branches of trees disposed for that purpose upon the ballast, and round the ship, with mats, to prevent their contract ing any Moisture.
There are four kinds of commodities drawn from cod, viz. the sounds, the tongues, the roes, and the oil extracted from the liver. The first is salted at the fishery, together with the fish, and put up in barrels from 6 to 700 pounds. The tongues are done in like manner, and brought in barrels from 4 to 500 pounds. The. roes are also salted in barrels, and serve to cast into the sea to draw fish to gether, and particularly pilchards. The oil comes in barrels, from 400 to 520 pounds, and is used in dressing leather. The Scots catch a small kind of cod on the coast of Buchan, and all along the Murray Firth on both sides ; as also in the Firth of Forth, Clyde, &c. which is much esteemed. They salt and dry them in the sun upon rocks, and sometimes in the chimney. They also cure skait, and other smaller fish in the same manner, but most of these are for home consumption.