Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1881 — Electricity and Salted Herrings. [ARTICLE]

Electricity and Salted Herrings.

Had any scientific enthusiast of the last generation announced his belief that the progress of electrical science would directly affect the supply of herrings to those inland Catholic countries where they are—when salted —in such demand for food on fast days, his friends would have been anxious for his cerebral welfare. As a matter of fact, this is now the case. The Norwegian coast is girdled by 1,200 miles of herring telegraph wire, and telegraph stations are established on the barren rocks of the Lofodden islands, and in the hollows between the dark, precipitous cliffs that form the Arctic face of Europe. Here, among the screaming seabirds, a watch is kept of the movements of,herring shoals, and particulars concerning their progress are flashed to the settlements of hardy Norsemen who live by the harvest of the Arctic and sub-Arctic ocean. According to such intelligence they make their preparations for securing some of the merchandise that they send so largely to the countries on the Mediterranean. — OenI tiemen's Magazine,