THE HELMSDALE 237 



drawn upon rested with the tenants and the estate factor. 

 More recently the water has been used not so much to create 

 artificial spates as to maintain a higher level of river than 

 otherwise would be possible. This obviates difficulties as to 

 concerted action on the part of the proprietors. 



It has often been said that one of the reasons for the decline 

 of our salmon is the great increase of land drainage. In the 

 Helmsdale, as in other districts, this was felt to have brought 

 about an alteration in the old flow of the river ; the rainfall was 

 more quickly carried off, floods came down rapidly, but they 

 lasted a much shorter time, and consequently fish had much 

 shorter periods of good running water. In impounding the 

 head waters, an attempt was made to restore to the river the 

 advantage of the old slow drainage of the hill land. The late 

 Mr. Frank Sykes, who had the longest acquaintance with the 

 river of any tenant, wrote to me as follows on this subject : 

 " The object we had most in view was to have such a reserve of 

 water that we could keep the river at such a height that it 

 would be possible for fish to run up at any time during the 

 summer months. . . . We realised that sometimes fish could 

 not run from the sea, nor in some cases from pool to pool for 

 weeks together ; and it was to try to secure a share of every 

 run of fish which came on the coast, and to keep the fish that 

 were already in the river healthy that we impounded the water. 

 Of course, the summer fishing has wonderfully improved, and no 

 one is more pleased than I am about it." 



The original level of Loch-an-Ruathair was 415 feet, and all 

 through summer it is still at its natural level. The height of 

 Badanloch above the sea was originally 392 feet. The junction 

 of the streams from these lochs, at Kinbrace, is about 330 feet 

 above the sea. 



I confess I do not admire the kind of salmon pass erected at 

 either dam dyke, but the type conforms to the requirements 

 of the Salmon Acts, and fortunately in this instance does not 

 require to be very serviceable since, at the close of the fishing 

 season, the sluices are opened, and fish are enabled to reach the 

 high spawning grounds as they formerly did. 1 



1 A description of the Badanloch Dam Dyke and Pass, with a plan 

 and section, is given in 23rd Annual Report Fishery Board for Scotland, 

 Part ii., Appendix v. This dyke was subsequently heightened 3 feet. 



