256 The Metropolitan Railway. 
where the shoals are encountered, and followed by fleets of 
fishing vessels, pushing out from every port on the first 
sign of the welcome harvest. The evidence we have taken 
shows that the same fluctuations which are exhibited by 
the Scotch returns are felt on the English Coast, but there 
is no indication of decline. At Scarborough, during the 
past three years, there seems to have been a marked and 
progressive increase. So plentiful are the herrings there, 
sometimes, that 700 to 800 tons are said to be sent thence, 
into the interior of the country, by railway, in a single 
day. From Lowestoft, vast quantities are distributed, in a 
fresh state, among the manufacturings town during the 
period of the fishery, Birmingham and Manchester taking 
the largest share. At Yarmouth, where from 3,000 to 
4,000 men are engaged in the Autumn fishery, the take of 
1862 and 1863 was better than had been known for twenty 
years. Nor is the benefit confined to our country. The 
French boats follow the herring on the British Coasts in 
large and increasing numbers, and the Dutch herrings, . 
which are so much prized in the continental markets, are 
most caught within sight of the English shores. 
(To be continued in our next.) 
THE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY. 
To the Editor of the TECHNOLOGIST. 
S1r,—A short time since I was coming from Hammer- 
smith to London by the Underground Railway. I entered 
a third-class, having seen a man enter also with a large 
sheet of bricks and mortar under his arm. This sheet 
was about three or four’ feet in length, and perhaps two and 
a-half in width, and about half an inch to an “iene 
thickness ; one side was smooth, and the other altogether 
as rough. It was exceeding hard, as that of stone, both 
the bricks and mortar equally the same. The rough side 
had the appearance of being snapped off by some instru- 
ment. 
The man informed me that this layer or sheet had sepa- 
rated itself from the wall inside one of the tunnels. 
I write this, hoping some of your numerous readers who 
have been accustomed to engineering, may be able to 
explain the cause. | 
| I am, &c., ' M.D. 
