Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/224

212  must initiate for themselves and develop by their own resources, and direct by the light of the consciousness of their distinctive needs. Then, and not till then, shall we able to form an exact estimate of the social and industrial conditions under which the apprenticeship of the future may become a living reality. Then, and not till then, will the apprenticeship of the future constitute a powerful instrument, not merely for the intellectual, moral, and social improvement of the working-classes, but for the promotion of the wealth and prosperity of the whole nation.

 

HE periodical migrations of birds, grand as is the scale on which they are performed, and fitted as they are to excite astonishment, are insignificant compared with those which are made by the fishes of the sea, A faint illustration of the stupendous character of these movements is given off the west coast of Norway at the opening of the fishing-season in the spring, when one, looking out over the sea in quiet weather, will be witness of a stirring spectacle. The surface of the water as far as the eye can reach glistens in diversified colors; the fiords and bays are alive with silvery streaks playing in constant movement. The agitation is caused by the schools of herring, which are so closely packed that a boat can not pass through them, an oar may be made to stand up among them, and they may be dipped up in buckets or caught with the hand by the thousand. The enemies of the herring also come with them—the mackerel, the sharks, and the dolphins enlivening the scene with their graceful movements, with great flocks of gulls. The sprat also appear in great multitudes on the coasts of the North Sea, and the pilchards on the coasts of France and Spain and the southwestern coasts of Great Britain in such immense schools that millions of them have been taken with a single draught of a large net.

The fish of the family of the Gadidæ regularly visit the northern seas in innumerable hosts. The codfish come between January and March to the shallow bays of the Loffoden Islands and the banks of Newfoundland, where their fishery gives employment to more than ten thousand vessels and about one hundred and fifty thousand fishermen.

Codfish and herring belong entirely to the sea. Many other fish wander from the sea into the rivers. The sturgeon and the white-fish go from the Caspian Sea to the Volga to spawn in such numbers that, before the fishery became so destructive to them as it is, the children on the shore could scoop them up with their hands. Still more 