APPENDIX, 67 



two creels, perhaps five feet deep each, were let 

 down by a kind of lever, one placed over the other, 

 both being filled with ftones after being fecurely fixed 

 at front by a ftrong row of oaken piles, placed within 

 about a foot of each other ; the length of the piles ge- 

 nerally from fix to twelve feet, and fometimes more, 

 according to the depth of the water. The piles are 

 bound together by ftrong hazel wattles. The bark 

 was previously dripped off tl)e piles, not altogether on 

 account of the profit to be made of it, but upon a pre- 

 iumption that they would laft longer, which indeed 

 proves the conjecture to be well founded. 



The work is completed by floping the bank down to 

 tfie piles, taking great precaution in introducing tough 

 fods, or fuch as beft agree with water, and that are 

 kaft fubjecl to be wafted by the frequent agitation of 

 the waves, at or near low-water-mark ; a circumftance, 

 which cannot be too well attended to, being the pre- 

 cife medium, at which the banks of rivers and lakes fuf- 

 fer moft ; as banks, when fecurely formed, and well 

 Hoped, feldom or ever fufFer by food-water. The com- 

 mon fedge, or reed-grafs, is admirably well calculated 

 to fecure the banks ; on many parts of the banks of the 

 Mourne river (which is the general name) it grows 

 fpontaneoufly ; and, where it fully eftablifhes itfelf, it 

 generally fuperfedes all other precautions in point of 

 fecurity. Here great induftry is ufed to introduce the 

 rced-grafs, which has hitherto fucceeded ; it is cut into 



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