FIRTH OF FORTH FISHING 161 



Scandinavia, numbers had to be boiled down 

 for the oil they contained, and a process was 

 invented by which herring and other fish, even 

 in a putrid state, provided materials which, 

 with turpentine, were manufactured into soap. 



During the closing years of the eighteenth 

 century and the opening years of the nineteenth 

 this abundance of herring, especially along the 

 northern shores of the Firth of Forth, gave a 

 special advantage to the Fife fishermen in the 

 wide part of the firth. Houses were built in 

 the neighbourhood for curing red herring, and 

 large quantities of salt, and numbers of barrels 

 were collected. A fishing fleet drawn from all 

 parts of England, Scotland and Ireland 

 assembled in the firth to a total of 360 vessels 

 and 1,200 boats, and the shores were covered 

 with numbers of persons engaged in gutting, 

 salting and barrelling the fish, the scene bear- 

 ing a strong resemblance to that presented 

 by the south coast of Sweden during the 

 prosperous times of the herring fishing there 

 several hundred years earlier. 



In the year 1800 the price of bread was very 

 high, as will be seen from the prices ruling at 

 that time : — 



