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. N. 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 Howard, 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 

 



