The North Sea and its Fisheries 1

Abstract

FOUR-SQUARE the North Sea lies, and its gates are three. To the northward lies the broad opening to the northern ocean, a frequented highway of the fisherman, where the sails of commerce are few. The eastern gate is the wide channel of the Skagerack, that leads through the narrow passes of the Belts and Cattegat to the great inland Baltic Sea; I like to think of it as an old road, a route of very ancient trade, the old highway of the Hanse merchants, the road to Muscovy! And lastly, in the south-west, there is the narrow strait that widens into the British Channel, the chief and busiest street of the modern maritime world. Of these three gateways, two open to the ocean and one to the inland sea, two to the salt waters and one to the brackish or the fresh; and herein, as we shall see presently, we have the simple clue to much of the physics and not a little of the biology of the North Sea.