WICK, a royal, parliamentary, and municipal burgh and sea-port, capital of Caithness shire, stands on both sides of Wick Water, at the mouth of that stream, and at the head' of an inlet called Wick bay, 16 in. s.s.w. of Duncansby head, and 20 in. e.s.e. of Thurso. The parliamentary boundaries include the royal burgh. containing (1871) 1767 inhabit ants, which, with the suburbs of Louisburgh and Boathaven, containing 1000 more, lies on the n. side of the river and bay, and Pulteney town on the s. side; pop. over 5,000—the total pop. of the parliamentary burgh being, iu '71, 8,145. Pulteney-town, a settlement of the British fisheries society, is a flourishing town managed by Improve ment commissioners. The bay is about a mile long by half a mile broad, exposed to frequent storms from e. and n.e. There is an excellent tidal harbor of. considerable ca pacity, the property of the said society. The society some years ago undertook the con struction of a breakwater in deep water, and spent large sums upon it. Considerable
progress was made with the work, but a series of storms destroyed the greater part of it, and the completion of it seems now to be abandoned. The institutions within the parliamentary burgh comprise a county court-house and prison, 9 churches and chapels, a town-hall, the Pulteney-town academy, and a chamber of commerce. There are 2 weekly newspapers. Wick is the great center of the herring-fishing in Scotland, though: of late years the take has not been so great as it had formerly been. Everything in the town is subservient to the herring-fishery, and the trades—chiefly barrel-making, boat building, and rope-making o.—are directly supported by it. A railway connecting Wick with the s. was opened in 1874. In 1877 the number of herring-boats was 846, and the number of barrels salted Was 60,684. In the same year 920 vessels, of 98,413 tons, en tered, and 904 of 88,190 cleared the port.