FIELDS AND HARVESTERS 39 



above, and not below, the surface of the sea ; and the 

 day may come when again it will be a fertile and smiling 

 stretch of country. Engineers of the future may reclaim 

 it, as they mean to win back the Zuyder Zee, and the 

 people of the Dogger may be a race of whom we cannot 

 form any conception, and of which it is, perhaps, better 

 not to think. Included in that people may be learned 

 creatures who will tell their fellows what the Dogger 

 used to be in the brave days when hard North Sea men 

 fished it mercilessly ; and statistics may be forthcoming 

 as to the amount of wealth represented by generations 

 of trawling from the Bank. The time is not yet. 

 Meanwhile, there are no figures available to give an 

 accurate idea of the aggregate of the enormous wealth of 

 the countless hauls which have been made from the 

 Bank, since the early days when single-boaters ventured 

 forth and shot their nets. We can only speculate and 

 estimate, and use the figures of the present as a guide to 

 the performances of the past and the probable achieve- 

 ments of the future. Of the past we know, fully or in 

 part ; of the present we are well informed ; but of the 

 time to come we only know that science will decide how 

 best the fish supply shall be dealt with. 



Not far from the Dogger, and due east from the 

 Yorkshire coast, is one of the most famous of all the 

 North Sea fishing-grounds. This is the Silver Pit, a 

 region which, in its way, has been as profitable as some 

 of the goldfields of Australia. The winter of 1 843 was 

 very severe, and myriads of soles had been driven by the 

 cold into the deep water of this particular part of the 

 North Sea. Very few trawlers were then at work ; but 

 one of them, a Hullman, had his gear down. When the 



