FISHERY. 
station, and the refusal of all the wood on 
the coast at his arrival. As fast as the mas- 
ters arrive, they unrig all their vessels, leav- 
ing nothing but the shrouds to sustain the 
masts, and in the mean time the mates pro- 
vide a tent on shore, covered with branches 
of trees, and sails over them, with a scaf- 
fold of great trunks of pines, twelve, fifteen, 
sixteen, and often twenty feet high, com- 
monly from forty to sixty feet long, and 
about one third as much in breadth. While 
the scaffold is preparing, the crew are fish- 
ing, and as fast as they catch they bring 
their fish ashore ; open and salt them upon 
^moveable benches; but the main salting is 
performed on the scaffold. When the fish 
have taken salt, they wash and hang them 
to drain on rails ; when drained, they are 
laid on kinds of stages, which are small 
pieces of wood laid across, and covered 
with branches of trees, having the leaves 
stripped off for (he passage of the air. On 
these stages they are disposed, a fish thick, 
head against tail, with the back uppermost, 
and are turned carefully four times every 
twenty-four hours. When they begin to 
dry, they are laid in heaps ten or twelve 
thick, in order to retain then- warmth; 
and every day the heaps are enlarged, till 
they become double their first bulk ; then 
two heaps are joined together, which they 
turn every day as before; lastly, they are 
salted again, beginning with those first 
salted, and being laid in huge piles, they 
remain in that situation till they are car- 
ried on board the ships, where they are laid 
on the branches of trees disposed for that 
purpose, upon the ballast, and round the 
ship, with mats to prevent their contract- 
ing any moisture. 
There are four kinds of commodities 
drawn from cod, viz. the zounds, the tongues, 
the roes, and the oil extracted! from the 
liver. The first is salted at the fishery, to- 
gether with the fish, and put up in barrels 
from 6 to 700 pounds. The tongues are 
done in like manner, and brought in barrels 
from 4 to 500 pounds. The roes are also 
salted in barrels, and serve to cast into the 
sea to draw fish together, and particularly 
pilchards. The oil comes in barrels, from 
400 to 520 pounds, and is used in dressing 
leather. The Scots catch a small kind of 
cod on the coast of Buchan, and all along 
the Murray Firth on both sides ; as also in 
the Firth of Forth, Clyde, &c. which is 
much esteemed. They salt and dry them 
in the sun upon rocks, and sometimes in 
the chimney. They also cure skait, and 
other smaller fish in the same manner, but 
most of these are for home consumption. 
Fishery, coral. See Coral fishery. 
Fishery, herring. Herrings are chiefly 
found in the North Sea. They are a fish of 
passage, and commonly go in shoals, being 
very fond of following fire or light, and in 
their passage they resemble a kind of light- 
ning. About the beginning of June, an 
incredible shoal of herrings, probably much 
larger than the land of Great Britain and 
Ireland, come from the north on the surface 
of the sea : their approach is known by the 
hovering of sea fowl in expectation of prey, 
and by the smoothness of the water ; but 
where they breed, or what particular place 
they come from, cannot be easily disco- 
vered. As this great shoal passes between 
the shores of Greenland and the North 
Cape, it is probably confined, and as it 
reaches the extremities of Great Britain, is 
necessarily divided into two parts. For we 
find one part of the herrings steering west, 
or south-west, and leaving the islands of 
Shetland and Orkney to the left, pass on 
towards Ireland, where, being interrupted a 
second time, some keeping the shore of 
Britain, pass away south, down St. George’s 
channel ; while the other part, edging off to 
the south-west, coast the western ocean, 
till they reach the south shore of Ireland, 
and then steering south-east, join the rest in 
St. George’s channel. The other part of 
the first division made in the north, parting 
a little to the east and south-east, pass by- 
Slietland, and then make the point of Bu- 
chan-ness, and the coast of Aberdeen, fill- 
ing as they go all the bays, firths, creeks, 
&c. with their innumerable multitudes. 
Hence they proceed forward, pass by Dun- 
bar, and rounding the high shores of St. 
Abbe’s Head, and Berwick, are seen again 
oflF Scarborough ; and even then not dimi- 
nished in bulk, till they come to Yarmouth- 
Roads, and from thence to the mouth of 
the Thames, after which, passing down the 
British channel, they seem to be lost in the 
Western Ocean. 
The vast advantage of this fishery to our 
nation is very obvious, when we consider 
that though herrings are found upon the 
shores of North America, they are never 
seen there in such quantities as with us, and 
that they are not to be met with in consi- 
derable numbers in any of the southern 
kingdoms of Europe, as Spain, Portugal, or 
the southern parts of France ; on the side of 
the ocean, or in the Mediterranean, or on 
the coast of Africa. There are two seasons 
