Book II. MARINE FISHERIES. 56ii 



brine pots, in which the water is evaporated to a strong brine, and afterwards it under- 

 goes an artificial evaporation and purification in boilers. (See 37 2.) 



3593. The metalliferous ores or stones should never be sought after, but in consequence 

 of the best advice and mature consideration. " Few," Marshal observes, " have made 

 fortunes by mines, and many have been ruined by them." Should a man of large landed 

 property, discover a productive mine on his estate, he offers him " two words of advice. 

 The first is not to work it himself. A gentleman among miners is a pigeon to be plucked. 

 Rather let the man who finds himself involved in such a predicament adopt the Cornish 

 practice, and stipulate to take a proportional part of the ore which may be raised : ac- 

 cording to the productiveness of the mine, and the expense of working it, jointly calcu- 

 lated. The other is not to break in upon the principal, or gross sum, which arises from 

 a mine. If the estate is encumbered, remove the encumberance. If not, increase its 

 size ; or, in any other prudent way, secure the interest of the gross produce of tlie mine : 

 and thus defy the evil effects of its failure. For no mine is inexhaustible." 



Chap. VIII. 

 Of the Establishment of Fisheries. 



3594. Fisheries may be arranged as marine, river, lake, and pond fisheries : the first 

 being of the greatest importance to this and every country. 



Sect. I. Of Marine Fisheries. 



3595. The importance of imjiroving the marine fisheries to an insular country, like 

 Britain, is sufficiently obvious. By their augmenting the quantity of food, there would 

 necessarily result a reduction in the prices of all the necessaries of life ; the condition of 

 the laboring poor, the artificers, and tradespeople would as necessarily be improved : they 

 would not only be the means of rearing and supporting a bold and hardy race of men for 

 the defence of the sea-coast, but also of creating a nursery of excellent seamen for the 

 navy in time of war, and of giving them employment when peace may render their 

 further services unnecessary. If the fisheries florished to that extent of which they 

 appear to be capable, every sea-port town and little village on the coasts, or on the 

 banks of the creeks and inlets, would become a nursery of seamen. It was thus 

 in Holland, where the national and natural advantages were very inferior to those 

 of Great Britain ; for it is well observed, in the report of the Down's Society, that 

 Holland produces neither timber, iron, nor salt, all of which are essential to fisheries, and 

 all the natural produce of Great Britain ; that Holland has no herrings on her own coast, 

 while the coasts of our island abound with them and other fish, at different and all sea- 

 sons of the year; 'so that there are few, if any, months in which shoals of this fish in 

 particular are not found on some part of our shores ; and that her population is under 

 3,000,000, while ours amount to about 1 8,000,000, giving to our fishermen six times the 

 consumption of a home market that the Dutch have. With all the impediments to an 

 extended use of fish in the home market, and notwithstanding the established character 

 which the Dutch fish have always borne among foreign nations, it is consoling to find that 

 the British fisheries are generally in a progressive state of improvement, and more par- 

 ticularly that most important of all their branches, the herring fishery. 



3596. The rapid progress of the herring fishert/ shows, that there is no art or mystery 

 in the catching and curing of herrings, that the English cannot accomplish as well as the 

 Dutch, which is further proved by the successful experiment made by the Down's Society 

 of fishermen ; in the report of whose proceedings it is stated, that herrings liad been taken 

 within the Cinque Ports of a quality so nearly resembling the deep sea fish, that they were 

 cured and sold as the best Dutch herrings. The progressive increase of the herring fishery 

 is confined to Scotland ; the quantity brought under the inspection of the officers in Eng- 

 land amounts not to one-twenty-second part of the whole, while the florishing little town 

 of Wick alone furnishes nearly one-fifth. But the most extraordinary increase is that 

 which has taken place in the neighboring county of Sutherland. Till a few years past, 

 the people of this county were contented to hire themselves as fishermen to the adven- 

 turers of Wick. In 1814, they attempted, with the aid and encouragement of the mayor 

 of Stafford, a fishery on their own account, and the mouth of the Helmsdale was fixed 

 upon as the station. A storehouse and curinghouse were here erected ; the boats were 

 manned by the people brought from the mountains, and the interior of the country. 

 Every thing was new to them in the employ they were about to engage. The fishing com- 

 menced on the 20th July, and ended on the 3rd September, 1814; and the four boats won 

 respectively 105/. 35., 83A 8s., 961. Ss. , and 148/. 3s. They were manned by four men 

 each, so that they made, on an average, rather more than 271. a man. In 1815, the num- 

 ber of boats employed amounted to fifty, almost entirely manned by Sutherland men ; and 



Oo 2 



