of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
1G7 
contents are steadily worked off in the factories ; but this does not often 
happen now. The seines are corked above, but not leaded below for fear 
of injury to the bottom and the life there, the net being kept down with a 
triple ply of ropes. The great seine is 650 yards long and 33 deep. The 
meshes of the wings, which are detached when the net is enclosed around 
the fish and the supplementary portion added, is O030 1 ". that of the centre 
O*015 m . The object is to allow the small fish to escape during the oper- 
ation which takes some 10 or 12 hours to complete. 
The quantities taken formerly on these occasions are almost incredible. 
One of these large seines can enclose, and the factory work off, 39 barges 
of fish, each load worth £500, and altogether containing 5 million fish. 
These are thrown into 70 stone troughs of great size, in two long ranges up 
the factory — the surface on a level with the floor nearly — for convenience, 
and covered with heavy wooden lids. These are carefully made to hold 
upwards of 50,000 fish each. The fish are salted in layers as they are 
placed in the stone vats, and left there for some time, according to pressure 
in the factory — generally 15 days. A great amount of space is required 
for such an extensive establishment, and the capital invested in the prin- 
cipal factory is not less than £12,000, idle except during the sardine fish- 
ing. The fish having been delivered from the barges on two sides of 
the factory are turned over with shovels, and salted with seived salt, ere 
being consigned to the stone vats. Taken from thence they are skewered 
in twenties, undergo four washings, and are then ready for the barrels. 
It must be well understood that these sardines are not the immature fish 
that are tinned, but fish up to 7 inches long that are prepared for keep- 
ing in hot weather, and consequently are better suited for the Spanish and 
Mediterranean markets than our ordinary Scotch herring. While the 
sardine is commonly left for a fortnight in the stone tanks covered with 
salt, the pilchard of Cornwall is often three months or more in salted heaps 
ere being finally treated for the Italian market. 
After being washed as above the sardines are laid in the barrels and 
piled up until they reach, according to the size of the barrels, from 7 
inches to perhaps a foot above the top of the barrels. On the surface of 
this a lid like a daunt is placed, and the barrels set in rows under a series 
of levers formed of long beams of wood. One end of the beam is fixed to 
the floor — several systems being employed — and the other end is weighted 
by a heavy stone with a ring attached. The lever in its lower length 
crosses the top of the barrel and brings a steady pressure to bear upon it, 
with the result that the oil is slowly expelled along with the surplus brine. 
This runs along a channel in the stone floor to the far end of the long 
shed, where it is received in a system of tanks. The first tank holds say 
3 hogsheads of the combined liquor, from the upper portion of which the 
higher stratum (of pure oil) flows over into the oil tank. From the bottom 
of the first tank the heavy brine runs away, the division thus taking place 
automatically. There is a great difference in the quantity of oil taken 
from the summer and winter fish, as might be expected, the summer 
sardine supplies a barrel of oil to every 24,000, while in the winter months 
300,000 fish are required to supply the same quantity. From time to time 
the barrels are examined, the weights increased and the pressure maintained 
until the proper quantity of fish is pressed down into the receptacle. 
The smallest keg is 24 hours under the press, with additional leverage or 
weights every few hours. No other system is so good as this leverage 
one. Screw presses have been introduced into Cornwall for the pilchard 
fishery, but the pressure is not so equal and steady, but only increased by 
spurts in place of continuously following the depression of the fish in the 
barrel as is the case with the levers. The barrels are markedly distinct 
