86 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
XIV. 
THE FISHING INDUSTRY 
BY 
R. S. CLARK, M.A., D.Sc. 
Tue fishing industry of Great Britain occupies an important position in 
the national economy, but only those living in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of the ports or in close proximity to the highways of traffic are able 
to appreciate the extent of its ramifications, and its vital importance as a 
source of food supply, as an employer of labour and as a nursery for 
seamen. This perhaps is not surprising in view of the fact that little 
more than fifty years have passed since the introduction of the two great 
factors in modern fishery development—steam power to fishing vessels 
and the otter trawl as a means of capture. A fish market at any of the 
great ports on a day of average landings offers a fine opportunity of gaining 
a first-hand impression of modern fisheries, and British Association visitors 
are recommended to pay an early morning visit to the fish market of 
Aberdeen, which is Scotland’s premier trawling port. The North-east 
area possesses also the seasonal herring centres and distinctive ports of 
Fraserburgh and Peterhead. 
Aberdeen Fish Market is a wonderful sight when at 8 a.M. auctioning 
of the catches begins. The landings are made chiefly by steam trawlers 
and liners which moor alongside the quay, and here any weekday practi- 
cally throughout the year there are displayed most of the commercial fish 
species used as food in this country. Cod and haddock form the mainstay 
of the landings, while saithe (Black Jacks), whiting, ling, skate, lemon 
soles, witches, plaice, megrim, halibut, turbot and dabs, as well as other 
species, are represented. Within recent years, and partly as a result of 
the seasonal dearth of fish supplies from the nearer fishing grounds, local 
skippers have mastered the art of trawling for herring, a pelagic fish, 
and increased landings of this species, the capture of which by trawl was 
developed by Germany, are being made by our own vessels during the 
autumn months from the deeper water area of the northern North Sea. 
Since the introduction of steam vessels in 1882, and of the otter trawl 
in 1895, Aberdeen’s progress as a fishery centre has been interrupted 
only by the war, and although the field of operations has had to be extended 
to keep up the supplies, the total landings in any one year since the begin- 
ning of the century have seldom been less in value at the first sale than a 
million pounds sterling and have actually reached, as in the year 1920, 
the phenomenal value of three millions. 
Whence comes this vast supply of food? ‘The port of Aberdeen is 
admirably situated geographically as a base for working the productive 
