OUR SEA FISHERIES. 193 



information of which I am in possession, and endea- 

 vour to point out the best method of developing its 

 riches. 



" The fishing-ground at Eockall, upon which Messrs. 

 Ehodes, Gardner, and other masters of cod-fishing 

 smacks, met with such extraordinary success in 

 August last, and discovered such vast shoals of large, 

 beautiful white cod, and numerous other fish, is a 

 sandbank in the North Atlantic Ocean, of nearly 100 

 miles in length and forty in breadth. The rock which 

 gives it a local habitation and a name, is situate 

 in 57 deg. 35 min. K latitude, 13 deg. 41min. W. 

 longitude, and is of a rounded form, rising about 

 eighteen or twenty feet above the sea. When viewed 

 from a quarter of a mile distant, it has all the ap- 

 pearance in size of a round cornstack. The top is 

 nearly flat, and was quite white with the offal of the 

 numerous sea-birds that hatch upon it in summer. 

 There is no other rock visible above water, but I 

 understand that there is a reef of five or six miles in 

 length, covered by from two to five fathoms of water. 

 Mr. Bolton, of the Hoioard, thinks that the tides set 

 in a circle round the rock, from the way the vessels 

 drifted when fishing, but his stay was too short for 

 ascertaining the truth of his conjecture. 



" The nearest land to Eockall is the small island of 







