PASSAGIUM REGINAE The - Royal Dunfermline

was opened again, allowing the water to gush out and so clear the harbour of
its refuse. Boys used to catch flounders in this pond. The narrow wall in the
pier was erected in 1870 to afford a little protection to a few small sailing and
rowing boats, such as are still anchored in the harbour. There are no mooringposts
left here, but at Brucehaven there are several on the pier, and one or two
are in good preservation.
Standing on the shore at Limekilns in this year of grace, and over looking the
now little-used waterway of the Forth, it is interesting to recall that the past
century and a half has seen the rapid growth and no less rapid decline of two
utterly distinct periods of maritime activity –the first, peaceful, of sailing
vessels, based on the flourishing like and coal industries that had sprung up
along the coast; the second, warlike, of steam and oil, when Rosyth, for the
crowded years of the war, was the base of the Battle Cruiser Squadron, and of
hordes of destroyers. Now both periods have passed, and the Forth has
lapsed again into the placid existence which it knew through the aeons of
time that came before.
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