400 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
yard, and the ‘‘stately ships,” as Tennyson calls them (he must have 
meant sailing ships), were launched from our many building yards. 
In 1876 eleven ships were built here, which were no more 
altogether than 1,272 tons. Yet Plymouth stands eighth in im- 
portance of the wooden ship-building ports, the highest being 
Sunderland, with twelve ships, of together 4,291 tons. 
The iron, sailing, and steam-ships are built chiefly at Liverpool, 
Stockton, Sunderland, the Tyne Ports, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenock. 
We had engaged in the Fisurne Traps, registered under the Sea 
Fisheries Act, 1868, in 1876, three hundred and sixty vessels and 
boats of 3,153 tons. 
These figures place Plymouth tenth in importance in England and 
Wales as a fishing port. It is a curious fact that all the ports 
which have a larger number of vessels, or tonnage, engaged in the 
fishing trade than Plymouth are to the eastward, none to the 
westward, and are all but one (Dartmouth) on the east coast of 
England. The number of fishing-boats is an indication of the 
fishing industry of Plymouth, and not of the fish trade, which is 
much larger than these figures represent, the fish caught on a great 
extent of coast being landed here. 
The harbour of Plymouth being so fine and so accessible, as 
already described, a very large number of ships put into the port 
for various purposes, as the Sound often testifies, which are not, 
technically speaking, entered at the Custom House, but merely 
enter the harbour. 
In the year 1877 sixty-six of the finest ships afloat arrived here 
to embark, for Australia and New Zealand— 

First-class passengers : ; ; 567 
Second and third-class ee : : : 924 
Free and assisted emigrants . : : . 13,275 
Total emigration from Plymouth . . 14,766 
In 1877 two hundred and eighty-three steamers put into this 
port to land or embark passengers, goods, and mails from and to 
foreign countries, calling regularly, belonging to 
The Royal Mail Steam-packet Company. 
The Hamburg-American Steam-packet Company. 
The Union Steam-packet Company. 
The Donald Currie & Co. Steam-packet Company. 
The Bristol Screw Steam-ship Company. 
The Direct Line (Demerara) Steam-packet Company. 
The T. Jones Stevens & Son’s Steamers. 
