Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1884 — The Home of the Codfish. [ARTICLE]

The Home of the Codfish.

What a marvelous influence upon civilization and human progress the humble but nutritious codfish has had. He has been a mine of wealth to a vast population. It seems that good Mother Nature, foreseeing the needs of humanity, has made special preparations for a good supply of this very necessary article of food for body and brain, and floated her icebergs, which were filled with the sandy bottom of Northern seas, down to the Gulf Stream, where they melted and. deposited their debris, forming the Grand Bank of Newfoundland. It was the work, the slow and toilsome work, of ages. Every sprung thousands of these bergs, one-tlmrd above the water and two-thirds below, the upper part clear, sparkling and translucent, reflecting the sunshine and giving it back to the enraptured eve ' with that prodigality and brilliancy of coloring which only nature can affeed, the lower part mixed with the coast bottom of Greenland and Labrador, to the eiitent of thousands of cartloads, came floating down majestically through Davis Strait, and, meeting the waa-m air and warm water of the Gulf Stream, melted and deposited their contributions until those immense shoals were formed, where the cod and haddock swarm. And it is said that these sandbanks foave huge depressions like vast valleys, which serve as aquaria, and that. wihan a vessel is lucky enough to anchor over one of them, it can fill its hold and .deck with as many as it can carry. For generations, the inhabitants of Newfoundland, and tiie venturesome folks wlio live all along the New England coast, get their daily bread or lay up a competency from this never-failing source of wealth. What a vast number of people on the globe get their living out of and subsist principally on the invaluable cod, and what vast quantities have been landed by the fishing fleet of Gloucester since her fishermen first engaged im the business.—Fisherman's Own Book.