CHAP, vii.] DECLINE OF THE COU-FISHE1JY. 303 



sent on to London as required. Although the railways have 

 put an end to a good deal of this style of transport, some car- 

 goes of cod have been carried alive all the way from the 

 Eockall fishery to Gravesend. But the percentage of waste 

 is necessarily enormous : however, it pays to do this, arid one 

 result of the Eockall discovery has been the starting of a joint- 

 stock company to work one of the large North Sea fisheries. 

 The cod-bank at the Faroe Islands is now about exhausted ; 

 but the gigantic cod-fishery which has been carried on for two 

 centuries on the banks of Newfoundland still continues to be 

 prosecuted with great enterprise, although, according to re- 

 liable information, not with the success which characterised 

 the fishery some years ago. In a few years more it will be 

 quite possible to make a decided impression even on the cod- 

 banks of Newfoundland. The Great Dogger Bank fishery has 

 now become affected by overfishing, and the Eockall Bank 

 fails to yield anything like the large " takes " with which it 

 rewarded those who first despoiled it of its finny treasures. 

 A gentleman who dabbles a little in fishing speculations writes 

 me "In 1862, I sent a fine smack to Eockall, and fish were 

 in great plenty some very large ; but the weather is usually 

 so bad, and the bank so exposed to the heavy seas of the 

 North Atlantic, that the best and largest vessels fail to fish 

 with profit in consequence of the wear and tear and delay. 

 This will account in some degree for the cessation of enter- 

 prise as regards the Eockall fishery." A writer in the 

 Quarterly Review, a few years ago, said of the Dogger Bank : 

 "No better proof that its stores are failing could be given 

 than the fact that, although the ground, counting the Long 

 Bank and the north-west flat in its vicinity, covers 11,800 

 square miles, and that in fine weather it is fished by the 

 London companies with from fifteen to twenty dozen of long 

 lines, extending ten or twelve miles, and containing from 

 9000 to 12,000 hooks, it is not yet at all common to take 



