144) Dr Hibbert on the Discovery of the Shetland Cod-hanl:. 
year 1778, it appears that this gentleman was present when 
Bressay Sound v/as filled with Dutch busses preparing to set out 
for the herring-fishery. After describing, in a very particular 
manner, the arrangements and economy of this fleet, he adds, 
Besides the herring-busses, the Dutch send out many doggers 
on the cod-fishing. These are going and coming from early 
spring through the whole summer. Each dogger has ten men 
and two boys, the half of whom sleep while the other are em- 
ployed in fishing.” 
The evidence yet to be given respecting the cod-fishery of 
Shetland, comprises the most recent circumstances relating to 
the Bank, subsequently to the departure of the Dutch from our 
shores, and refers to visits which were made to the Bank by the 
British : these were accidental. It appears from Mr Low, in 
his Fauna Orcadensis, that a bank lying to the north-west of 
the Burgh of Birsay in Orkney, was well known in these islands ; 
but, that it was a bank extending to the west of Foula, and 
even much farther north, was a circumstance to which the 
islanders seem to have been perfect strangers. ‘‘ The cod-fish,” 
he remarks, “ is found in swarms on the banks all round the 
coasts, but is very little sought after. Of old this was not the 
case. Merchants from the south had their factors here, and 
many fish were yearly made and transported from these isles. 
Now all is sunk in indolence and sloth.” 
Additional evidence relating to an accidental visit to the bank 
has been given me by Mr Duncan, the intelligent gentleman 
whose communications I have before acknowledged. “ I recol- 
lect,” he informs me, “ that a vessel came into Bressay Sound 
several years ago, with her decks filled with cod. I was told by 
the master of the vessel, that they had been caught to the north- 
ward of the Orkneys, during two or three hours of a calm. The 
master must therefore have been upon the bank when he fell in 
with the fish, since it stretches round the northward of these 
islands.” 
The next evidence I shall offer on the subject of the bank, 
with reference to an historical order, will appear in an extract I 
shall make from an interesting Tour through Orkney and Shet- 
land, made by Mr Neill of this city during the summer of 1804. 
It was not likely that an accidental and remarkably successful ex- 
