116 SALMON RIVERS OF ENGLAND AND WALES. 



that, in any sense, we have still a " silver Thames." 

 We wish our Scotch fishermen would learn the value of 

 eels. Those who wish to know it will find interesting 

 information in " Maritime Pisciculture." 



The cost of cleansing the Thames, so as to again 

 render it habitable by salmon, would be so enormous 

 that we despair of it being deodorised. This dismal 

 result of forgetting Lord Palmerston's definition of dirt 

 "valuable matter in an improper place " is a warn- 

 ing to the dwellers on all rivers to jealously preserve 

 their purity by insisting that all towns and villages 

 shall find other means of disposing of their filth than 

 by casting it into running streams. If the Lord Ad- 

 vocate cannot carry through Parliament a bill regulat- 

 ing Scottish salmon rivers, it is to be hoped that the 

 legislature will not refuse to take measures to hinder 

 them being defiled, and so becoming nuisances like the 

 Thames. 



The salmon has been banished from several rivers in 

 Wales and Cornwall by poisonous matter from mines 

 particularly lead-mines. A total extinction of animal 

 life has taken place in the waters of the Eheidol and 

 the Ystwith ; and even the sea-fishery, to the extent of 

 several miles from the influx of these rivers, has been 

 much deteriorated from the same cause. It has also 

 been proved that not only the fish in the rivers, but 

 animals g'razing on their banks cows, horses, pigs, 

 and poultry had been poisoned, not so much by drink- 

 ing the water as by eating the grass, which, during 

 floods, had been covered by the infected waters. Many 

 acres of land have thus been rendered worthless. The 

 mischief occasioned by water from lead-mines sometimes 

 leads to unexpected results. The birds in an aviary 

 perished unaccountably, until it was suggested that 

 they were supplied with sand impregnated with lead. 

 The sand being changed, the mortality ceased. In 

 Cornwall, which is peculiarly a mining county, the 

 salmon-fisheries may be said to have been virtually 



