138 I^c Thirtieth General Meeting. 



to which one of their days might be devoted, while on another day 

 of their Meeting their rambles might, as hitherto, range over a 

 wider and less minutely studied field. And, probably, if their 

 Meetings were biennial, instead of annual, they would be not less 

 appreciated than at present, and an even wider circle of friends of 

 archaeology would feel their attraction. 



The President then proceeded to make some observations on the 

 river Thames in its relation to public navigation — a subject with 

 which, he said, his public duties in the House of Commons had 

 recently brought him into contact, and which, while not being 

 altogether severed from their county of Wiltshire in its topographic 

 interests, presented some points of an historical and antiquarian value 

 that might justify him in briefly laying it before them. For theThames 

 was, if not the oldest, at least, one o£ the oldest, highways in the 

 nation. In the course of his remarks he said it was no wonder that 

 on a river of no larger dimensions than the Thames there should 

 have been an early contest between the owners of the water mills on its 

 banks and the navigating population, as to which had priority in the 

 use of the river, and which was to subordinate his interest in it to 

 that of his rival. But the river was there before the mill, and the 

 invention of boats was assuredly more ancient than that of water 

 wheels, and that this was the view of the earliest legislation we met 

 with on the subject was borne out by the fact that we found every other 

 interest on the river compelled by the laws for centuries to bend to 

 that of navigation, dating back to times far anterior to the Conquest. 

 It was not till comparatively recent centuries, that the mill dam and 

 weir were found by deepening the water above them to be an assistance 

 instead of an obstruction to navigation, and that the owners of what 

 had been, or had originated in, impediments were permitted to take 

 toll from passing barges and boats in return for assistance rendered 

 apparently in hauling them up through the rapid water at the point 

 where a weir held up the river. During the last two centuries the 

 mill-owner again became an object of legislation, which stepped in to 

 reo-ulate his exactions in the shape of toll, and ultimately to bring 

 up his claims. But the payment for aid to the navigation rendered 

 by the riparian proprietor dated back in another form to a very 



