the hope of the Department and its employees that the fishermen of
today will benefit from the detailed information in this publication,
and that they will remember Captain Robert McLellan, a man who knew how
to use books to enhance his career as a fisherman, who knew how to share
his knowledge with the scientific community, and who was widely
respected by fishermen and scientists alike.

INTRODUCTION

Paralleling the northeastern coast line of North America lies a long
chain of fishing banks--a series of plateaus and ridges rising from the
ocean bed to make comparatively shallow soundings. From very early times
these grounds have been known to and visited by the adventurers of the
nations of western Europe--Northman, Breton, Basque, Portuguese,
Spaniard, Frenchman, and Englishman. For centuries these fishing areas
have played a large part in feeding the nations bordering upon the
Western Ocean, and the development of their resources has been a great
factor in the exploration of the New World.

According to statistics collected by the Bureau of Fisheries.[2] these
banks annually produce over 400,000,000 pounds of fishery products,
which are landed in the United States; and, according to O. E. Sette,[3]
annually about 1,000,000,000 pounds of cod are taken on these banks and
landed in the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, France, and Portugal.

Apparently the earliest known and certainly the most extensive of these
is the Great Bank of Newfoundland, so named from time immemorial. From
the Flemish Cap, in 44 deg. 06' west longitude and 47 deg. north latitude,
marking the easternmost point of this great area, extends the Grand Bank
westward and southwestward over about 600 miles of length. Thence, other
grounds continue the chain, passing along through the Green Bank, St.
Peters Bank, Western Bank (made up of several more or less connected
grounds, such as Misaine Bank, Banquereau, The Gully, and Sable Island
Bank); thence southwest through Emerald Bank, Sambro, Roseway, La Have,
Seal Island Ground, Browns Bank, and Georges Bank with its southwestern
extension of Nantucket Shoals.

To all these is added the long shelving area extending from the coast
out to the edge of the continental plateau and stretching from the South
Shoal off Nantucket to New York, making in all, from the eastern part of
the Grand Bank to New York Bay, a distance of about 2,000 miles, an
almost continuous extent of most productive fishin