DREADFUL HURRICANE ON THE EAST COAST OF SCOTLAND.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 274, 13 January 1849, Page 2

DREADFUL HURRICANE ON THE EAST COAST OF SCOTLAND.

Aberdeen, Saturday Evening, Aogult 20. — Lsbfr night about one thousand boats, each manned by five fishermen, left the various ports of the easf coast of Scotland, betwixt Stonehaven and Faresburgh, for the herring fishery. When at the offing, at about an average distance of ten miles, and the nets down, the wind which had continued soir.h and south-east, suddenly chopped out to the south-east with rain. About 12 o'clock it blew a gale, the rain falling- in torren s, and the night was so dark ihat uoue of the land lights could be seen. As soon as the gale cimeon some of the fishermen began to haul their nets, but the sea ran so hisjli that most of the fleet had to run for (he shore to save lite. At Far^erburgh, the boats being to leeward of Kinna nl's-head, which forms the entrance of Murray frith, were less exposed than the boats to the southward, and managed to get a lauding without loss of life ; but at Peterhead which is the easternmost point of the coast, and altogether expo»ed to an eisterly ga'e, 70 out of 400 boats that were fishing there are missing, and there is too much icason to fear that most if not all of them are wrecked or sunk. At daybreak this morning the scene that presented itself along the shore between the Buchanness lighthouse and the entrance of the south harbour, was oi the met appalling de cription. The whole coast tor a wile and a half was strewed with wrecks and the dead bodies of fishermen. Twenty-three corpies were canied into Peterhead before 9 o'clock, and at the time the latest accounts left others we.c being constantly tin own ashore among the wreck on the sands or the rucks. Forty boa s were wrecked within the ciicuit or halt a mile, and so sudden and awful was the catastrophe, that no means of auccouiing or saving the distressed and perishing fi hsrmen could be devised. How many boats may have been foundered at sea or gone to pieces among the precipitous cliffs of Buchan no one at present can tell. One thing is certain that the ljW'. est possible estimate of the loss of life and property by*this gale exceeds that produced by any other hurricane hitherto recorded in the annals of the east coast of Scotland. It is calculated that along the coast tiot fewer than 100 lives are lost, and when it is considered that for the most part the deceased fishermen have left wives and families, it will be felt that the widowhood and orphanage of our seaport towns have received in one shou night an unparalleled augmentation. In recording these melancholy facts, the inquiry presents iiself, " How does it happen that the boats engaged in the fisheries on the east coatt of Scotland are constantly exposed lo such terrible calamities, while the boats engaged on the east coast of England, generally weather the itorm ?" The answer is simply this — :he boat* on the English coast are decked, while those on the Scotch coast are open. The former are in every respect fitted out for the deep lea fishery, and admirably adapted to withstand a gale; the latter, although manned by hardy and most adventurous fish* ermen, are adapted only for fine weather, constructed solely with the view of prosecuting one object— the herring fishery : and while this system prevails here such terrible calamities ai these we have just recorded may be expected to recur.