

Book II. MARINE FISHERIES. f29 



Considerable salt-works are carried on in Scotland, and in the northern counties of 

 England on the sea-coast, by the evaporation of sea ivater. At Lymington, in Hampshire, 

 the sea-water is evaporated to one sixth of the whole by the action of the sun and air. 

 The works in which the sea water is heightened into brine are called sun-works, or out- 

 works. These are constructed on a flat down or oozy beach, within a mole, which is 

 raised, if necessary, to keep out the sea ; there is a large reservoir, or feeding pond, 

 communicating with the sea by a sluice, and adjoining to this reservoir a long trench, 

 parallel to which there are several square ponds, called brine pots, in which the water is 

 evaporated to a strong brine, and afterwards it undergoes an artificial evaporation and 

 purification in boilers. 



3873. The metalliferous ores or stones should never be sought after, but in consequence 

 of the best advice and most 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 : according to the productiveness of the mine, and the expense of working it, 

 jointly calculated. 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 encumbrance : 

 if not, increase its size, or, in any other prudent way, secure the interest of the gross 

 produce of the mine, and thus defy the evil effects of its failure ; for no mine is 

 inexhaustible." 



Chap. VIII. 



Establishment of Fisheries. 



3874. 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. Marine Fisheries. 



3875. The importance of improving 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 labouring 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 flourished to that extent of which they 

 appear to be capable, every seaport 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 Downs Society, that Holland does 

 not produce timber, iron, or 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 at all seasons 

 of the year, so that there are few, if any, months in which shoals of this fi>h in particular 

 are not found on some part of our shores ; and that her population is under 3,000,000, 

 while ours amounts to about 18,000,000, giving to our fishermen six times the consump- 

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

 use of fish in the home inarket, 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 particularly 

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



3876. The rapid progress of the herring fishery 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 Downs Society of fishermen ; in the report of whose proceed- 

 ings it is stated, that herrings had 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 England amounts not to one twenty-second part of the whole, while the flourishing little town of 

 Wick alone furnishes nearly one fifth. But the most extraordinary increase is that which has taken 

 place in the neighbouring county of Sutherland. Till a few vcars past, the people of this county were 

 contented to hire themselves as fishermen to the adventurers" of Wick. In 1814, they attempted, with 

 the aid and encouragement of the Marquis 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 Ever) thing 



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