128 THE HERRING FISHERY 



find that in 1750 was published a very interest- 

 ing pamphlet, one of our very few sources of 

 illustration at this date, entitled " A Letter 

 to a Member of Parliament concerning the 

 Free British Fisheries," showing designs of 

 herring boats and nets of the period ; the author 

 complains bitterly of the poaching by the Dutch 

 herring vessels close in shore between Yarmouth 

 and Southwold. 



Certain of the uses to which herring were put 

 in the middle of the eighteenth century were 

 far from obvious. In 1752 James Solas Dodd 

 (some of whose recipes for cooking herring will 

 be found at the end of this book) recommends 

 their use in febrific cases and for cataplasms, 

 and states that the oil of herrings is " of excel- 

 lent service in cramps and convulsions." His 

 recipe for making the elixir " ossium halecum " 

 is as follows : — 



" Take 10 lbs. of herring bones, dryed and grossly 

 powdered, put them in a retort, lute it, and place it 

 in an open furnace — give it a degree of fire every two 

 hours till no fumes are seen in the receiver. Then 

 let all cool, and there will be an oil, a volatile salt, 

 and a pungent volatile spirit, which put in a clean 

 retort, and by fire unite together. Then take eight 

 ounces of this united spirit, and put into cucurbit 

 with two lbs. of rectified spirits of nitre, 1 lb. of 

 diaphoretic antimony, and 4 ounces of volatile salt 

 of tartar, distil and cohobate as often till it is per- 

 fectly united ; then add an ounce of oil of nutmeg, 

 and half an ounce of oil of cinnamon, digest in a 

 matrass ten days, and pour off for use, which keep 



