ARE WEIRS AND POLLUTIONS REMEDIABLE? 4} 
the value of the English salmon fisheries amounted to only 
one-eighth of that sum. The difference between £18,000 
a year and £150,000 a year represents the effects of 
protection, in which the alleviation of the evil of weirs has 
played only a small part, and the mitigation of pollutions 
one still more insignificant. The contrast between the 
present condition of our salmon rivers and the same rivers 
in a state more nearly approaching their pristine purity 
and freedom from obstruction would be seen in an ad- 
vance upon their present value far more enormous than 
is represented by the improvement from £18,000 to 
£150,000. 
Two questions arise:—Is the removal of the evil of 
weirs and pollutions possible? and, is the “game worth the 
candle” ? 
To take the case of the weirs first; one or two illustra- 
tions will suffice. Twenty years ago the River Tyne was 
blocked near its mouth by a formidable obstruction in the 
shape of a fishing-mill-dam at Bywell. For many years 
this weir was an almost impassable barrier to the ascend- 
ing salmon. Almost the only spawning ground of which 
the fish that escaped capture in the close season could 
avail themselves was situated in asmall stream flowing into 
the Tyne immediately below the dam. All the fish that 
reached the weir during the fishing season were at the 
mercy of the owner of the dam, yet year by year the take 
fell off. In 1842, however, a local Act provided for a 
weekly “slap” at Bywell fishing-mill-dam from Io P.M. on 
Saturday to 2 AM. on Monday. Although the opening 
thus made was accessible to fish at only infrequent inter- 
vals, owing to its position and other circumstances, one 
result of its formation was that the fishing above the weir 
improved very materially, while at the same time the 
