14 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



When this book was first published, the mouth of the 

 Gala was the most grossly polluted water in all Tweedside, 

 but a new system of drainage was being inaugurated with a 

 complete purification plant. Now Galashiels is a pattern to 

 all the other border towns owing to the success of her endea- 

 vours. The mouth of the Gala which used to flow in inky 

 blackness is once more inoffensive. Sedimentation tanks and 

 bacterial filters have absorbed the various impurities, and, as 

 if to make doubly sure, the effluent from the filters is passed on 

 through the land which forms the left bank of Tweed just 

 below Galafoot, and eventually emerges through a well-like 

 trap of white glazed bricks, a colourless and oxygenated fluid. 

 At the invitation of the Tweed Commissioners, after arrange- 

 ments with the town authorities, representatives of all the 

 other border towns were called to a demonstration and con- 

 ference in 1920, and there is reason to believe that, when the 

 financial stress caused by the War has passed, the example of 

 Galashiels may be followed at other places where similar action 

 is still much needed. 



If I might venture to go a little further in this matter, I would 

 say that what is ultimately needed is the establishment of a 

 standard of purity, and the creation of an official authority 

 capable of testing and controlling the manner in which the 

 standard is maintained. In their last report the Royal Com- 

 mission on Sewage Disposal state that they are satisfied with 

 regard to the basis upon which such a standard should be 

 made ; that it must take cognizance of two points : 1st, the 

 amount of suspended solid matter in the water, which pro- 

 visionally they suggest should not be greater than three parts 

 in 100,000 ; and 2nd, the amount of dissolved oxygen capable 

 of being taken up by the fluid after the removal of the suspended 

 solids. At the same time it is provided that a certain amount 

 of elasticity is possible to suit local conditions. 



I find that Stoddart, in The Angler's Companion,, says : . " It 

 is not until it reaches Ashiestiel that Tweed is looked on by 

 salmon-fishers with much regard. Higher up the fish killed 

 by the rod are comparatively few, and these, most of them, 

 in execrable condition." It is in this neighbourhood that the 

 Edinburgh Angling Club have for over seventy years had their 

 headquarters. "The Nest," a cottage on the Fernielee pro- 



