encumbered by sand-banks to be approached at night or during bad
weather. The Humber is also considerably obstructed in this way, so
that the Roads of Leith, in the Firth of Forth, and those of
Cromarty, in the Moray Firth, are the chief places of resort in
easterly gales. But both of these had their special risks.

On the one hand, there was the danger of mistaking the Dornoch Firth
for the Moray, as it lies only a short way to the north of the
latter; and, in the case of the Firth of Forth, there was the
terrible Bell Rock.

Now, during the storm of which we write, the fear of those two
dangers was so strong upon seamen that many vessels were lost in
trying to avoid them, and much hardship was sustained by mariners who
preferred to seek shelter in higher latitudes. It was estimated that
no fewer than seventy vessels were either stranded or lost during
that single gale, and many of the crews perished.

At one wild part of the coast, near Peterhead, called the Bullers of
Buchan, after the first night of the storm, the wrecks of seven
vessels were found in one cove, without a single survivor of the
crews to give an account of the disaster.

The "dangers of the deep" are nothing compared with the _dangers of
the shore_. If the hard rocks of our island could tell the tale of
their experience, and if we landsmen could properly appreciate it, we
should understand more clearly why it is that sailors love blue (in
other words, deep) water during stormy weather.

In order to render the Forth more accessible by removing the danger