OF GREAT BRITAIN. 45 



makers.' Any bungler in the trade can, of course, 

 make at least a passably waterproof boot if he 

 allows himself unlimited latitude in the matter of 

 weight and clumsiness, or ' stiffness.' The art is 

 to make a boot waterproof, and at the same time 

 light, and as soft to the foot as a kid glove." 



I have, at last, however, succeeded in finding 

 some bootmakers who can make shooting-boots 

 which fulfil these conditions. Messrs. Dowie and 

 Marshall, 455, Strand, have, working on the lines 

 I suggested, lately made me several pairs of 

 shooting-boots weighing only about 2 lbs. the pair, 

 instead of 3 lbs. or 4 lbs., — the ordinary weight — ■ 

 and as comfortable and impervious to water as the 

 most exacting can desire. 



For " waterproofing " all cloth and woollen 

 materials — I do not say m.aking them actually 

 waterproof, but sufficiently so to keep the under- 

 garments practically dry — I can recommend the 

 following receipt, given me by R. Atkinson, Esq., 

 of Temple Sowerby : — 



Dissolve sugar of lead and alum in rain water, one ounce of 

 each to a quart of water. When settled down, draw off the 

 clear (this is most easily done with a syphon), saturate the 

 ■woollen article in it (I generally leave it in twenty-four liours), 

 and dry in the open air. From my own experience I have 

 found a coat thus treated to be quite waterproof. 



From I to 5 lbs. is the usual weight of the Sea- 

 Trout, but much larger specimens have been re- 

 corded. In 1840, a male Sea-Trout was taken at 



