710 



Colleges has been so blocked, that extra horses had to be yoked on 

 before barges could be got up to Fosters' Mills. 



Sluice-keepers also complain that masses of it get into the pen, and 

 when the slackers are drawn the openings are choked, and the opera- 

 tion of letting boats through is greatly impeded. 



The Railway Dock at Ely became so choked with the weed, that 

 boats could not enter until several tons of it had been lifted out. At 

 Roswell-hill Pits, below Ely, the entrance docking was so blocked 

 that the gault-boats could not get in till it was removed. It was here 

 where I found it in flower. 



Rowers, too, find it interferes with their amusements ; and swim- 

 mers remark that it clings to them like " scratch-weed," and that, if 

 they are overtaken by a lump of it, they are likely to be entangled, 

 and dragged by it into deep water. 



Even the fishermen complain that they can no longer ply their nets 

 so freely as they were wont; and I am informed, on good authority, 

 that they have discontinued setting their hook-lines («'. e., lines laid 

 across the river with a series of hooks attached), because the "new 

 weed " either carries them away bodily, or strips them, both of their 

 baits and fish. 



Lastly, the drainage is impeded. Mr. Human, sen., our experi- 

 enced officer, informs me, that although the w^aters this season have 

 been run off at Denver Sluice afoot loiver than in previous years, the 

 average height of the water in the river below Cambridge has been a 

 foot higher than in ordinary seasons ; and he refers at least half this 

 difference to the obstructions occasioned by the presence of the Ana- 

 charis. 



From these facts I apprehend your readers will by this time have 

 arrived at the conclusion that a troublesome stranger has intruded 

 himself among us, uninvited ; but whence he came, how he got here, 

 and by what means he is to be got rid of, will furnish ample materials 

 for another letter. 



Letter 4. 



If you were some fine morning to find that a strange person, of 

 foreign aspect, had intruded himself, into your house, I imagine the 

 questions which would most naturally occur to your mind under such 

 circumstances would be, — Whence came the fellow, how did he get 

 here, and how am I to get rid of him ? But, as no one is presumed 

 to know the faces of all his neighbours, you would wish, doubtless, 

 before accosting him as a " rascally foreigner," to make sure he was 



