102 THE FISHERIES. 



possessed a stock of independent practical know- 

 ledge, paradoxes and fanciful theories would have 

 been rejected ; complex questions in relation to the 

 fisheries would have been subjected to patient and 

 competent analysis ; natural facts might have been 

 recognised, and plain solutions admitted : he might 

 on all occasions, have given a reason for the faith 

 that was in him, and so, upon momentous pubhc 

 questions, have helped to a wise and sound decision 

 — since we do believe, that when an important truth 

 or a practical fact is submitted to the test and ana- 

 lysis of impartial examination, we do, we say, believe 

 that truth and fact, and particularly a natural truth 

 or fact, cannot escape recognition. 



But the Board of Works, overwhelmed in en- 

 gineering, architectural, and statistical pursuits ; im- 

 mersed in questions of drainage, or of inland navi- 

 gatian — in geological researches, or in vast works of 

 computation, found themselves suddenly entangled in 

 the meshes of nets, and all the mysteries of trammel and 

 trawl — the regulation of the seasons and periods of 

 fishing — the extension of artificial oyster-beds — the 

 processes of curing — the adjusting and composing the 

 disputes of fishermen — regulating the complicated 

 details of the Salmon-fisheries, stake, bag, and seine, 

 with all their meshes and entanglements, queens-gaps 

 and fishing-weirs, hecs, cruives, inscales, and all the 

 rest — the very names of which, much less their uses, 

 they did not understand. 



The many occasions on which the Boarii of Works, 



