136 



SEASON 1874-75. 



interval the law was expounded to him ; but I believe the fine 

 was afterwards modified on the ground that it would be hard on 

 his landlord, to whom he had taken the precaution of being suf- 

 ficiently back-rented. 1 



The Black dam fed the old distillery dam at Craigend, but it 

 too, at the present date, has fallen into decay, and is no longer 

 any resource. 



My first care was to clear out the trees from the Craigend 

 dam; then I scraped away the soil from the old damhead. I 

 found that it would cost more to repair than it was worth, so I 

 built a new wall, 2 feet in front, of heavy dressed stone in 

 cement, taking the stone from Catcraig Quarry, and filled in 

 between the old face with milled clay. This was the most expen- 

 sive bit of work (for its size) I ever did, and the most unsatisfac- 

 tory. The old damhead was riddled with mole-holes, and it was 

 years before the dam was tight. While the masons were engaged 

 on the wall, I cleared out the old bottom down to the clay (about 

 1 foot below its original level), and cut a new course for the 

 stream in flood, round the dam, a difficult piece of engineering. 

 It is never advisable in new work to alter the old course of water. 

 The safest plan is that adopted at Howietoun, where the ponds 

 are made on one side of the stream, which is left as a waste 

 and flood-water course. But in patching old work it is some- 

 times impossible to do otherwise ; and at Craigend a great deal 



FIG. 88 scale &. 



of labour was expended on the new course of the burn. In 

 winter the water occasionally came down from the muir in heavy 

 spate, and a very large channel (always dry in summer) was neces- 



1 Stirling Journal, Friday, April 6, 1883. 



