38 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
“kidelli,” or fishing weirs, in navigable rivers. Later 
statutes enforced this provision, and extended it to “ gorces, 
mills, wears, stanks, and stakes,” or, as they are called in 
the old Norman French statutes, “gortz, molins, estanks, et 
estackes.” 
In these oft-repeated enactments the primary object was 
the maintenance of the navigation. The protection of the 
fisheries was a secondary idea ; but, inasmuch as any obstacle 
to the progress of the boats was an equal hindrance to the 
ascent of the salmon, the navigation and the fishery 
interests were so far identical, and, in fighting the battle of 
the boats, the Barons first, and Parliament afterwards, 
fought the battle of the salmon. Although in non- 
navigable rivers dams could still be legally erected, their 
numbers were probably few, and in any case the main 
streams and their larger tributaries remained free to 
the fish. 
This alliance of the fishing and the navigation interests 
lasted till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the 
link which united them was suddenly dissolved by the 
introduction of pound locks. Dams, which had hitherto been 
under a ban as a hindrance to navigation, were now hailed 
as a boon to it. Rivers, naturally non-navigable, could be 
made navigable by the application of pound locks, and the 
construction of these obstacles to the salmon, instead of 
being discountenanced, was encouraged for the sake of 
promoting the rapidly increasing commerce of the country. 
But what was life to trade was death to the fisheries. 
In the enthusiasm of the moment the people, and the 
guardians of public interests, forgot all about the salmon ; 
the “grantz rivers d’Engleterre ” were divided by impassable 
weirs into short reaches of semi-stagnant water, no longer 
speeding in its downward course to welcome the incoming 
