Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/114

 and the fish enclosed; the ends of it being then fastened together it is moored, or, where the shore is sandy and shelving, drawn into shallow water, the bottom of the net being kept to the ground by leaden weights, while the top is buoyed up with corks.

The quantity of fish thus inclosed and captured is sometimes enormous; one net has been known to inclose, at one time, as many as 1200 hogsheads, amounting to about three millions of fish. The inclosed fish are removed at leisure from their fold into boats, by means of small nets, by which a portion of the fish is separated from the main body and drawn up to the surface; they are then conveyed on shore to be cured or salted in cellars, and after remaining there for five or six days, they are packed into hogsheads for exportation.

The broken or refuse fish are sold for manure, and when mixed with sand, soil, or sea weed, constitute a valuable and lasting compost. It is a common saying in the district, that a single pilchard will fertilize a foot square of land for several years.

4. Miners.─As the employment and general habits of this class of persons are very peculiar, and as they exert, as we shall afterwards find, a very marked influence over their health, it will be necessary to enter more fully into the history of their employment and mode of life. And in order to enable the reader to understand these more completely, I shall, in the first place, give some account of the nature of a mine and of the economy of working it. Perhaps