HOWIETOUN. 



187 



HOWIETOUN 



received the most attention. On the 7th December the ice was 

 making much trouble, and half the Loch Leven springlings 

 (hatched January and February 1875) were removed to the 

 upper (100-feet) pond at Craigend. On the 14th the rest of 

 the fish at Howietoun had been removed to Craigend, and the 

 work at Howietoun begun in earnest. The leaf-screen was quite 

 insufficient to pass the water required for the proposed improve- 

 ments, so I determined to take the whole stream, and at once 

 designed a sluice capable of doing so. This was no easy matter. 

 Hitherto I had had to deal either with tiny burns, or to take only 

 a small quantity of water from a stream. Now I proposed to 

 take 1,000,000 cubic feet per diem, or 6J millions gallons ! And 

 not only this, but to take the whole stream on two hundred days of 

 the year, and leave only an insignificant overflow, except in the 

 largest spates. The sluice I designed has done this, and has only 

 required attention once or twice a day, even in frost. I first cut a 

 waste course for the stream, and made use of a slight wooden dam 

 that had been erected to turn the water on to the intake for the 

 discarded leaf-screen. I then laid a foundation of concrete across 



FIG. 137 scale 



the course of the stream, and on this two blocks of stone weighing 

 a little more than a ton each (Fig. 137). This formed the floor of 



