STORAGE AND PASSES 293 



the largest rivers were seriously affected. Places in 

 them that of old must have been scarcely noticeable 

 obstructions became impassible to the fish in time of 

 drought. How can we wonder that the state of affairs 

 was regarded as hopeless ; that the lower proprietors 

 saw no harm in taking all the salmon that came their 

 way, that manufacturers were allowed to cast their 

 refuse into the waters, and that towns disposed of 

 sewage by the same means ? In some cases the rivers, 

 as salmon rivers, were, by common consent, regarded 

 as doomed. They were no longer as Nature meant 

 them to be, and there was no inkling that they might 

 become so once again. The unexpected, however, 

 has happened. It actually is possible to put the rivers 

 into something like the state of nature. When the 

 possibilities of the storage system are realised, we 

 shall soon see an end to public indifference and to 

 the conflict of private interests. These evils will 

 readily remove themselves when it is known that the 

 rivers can be made to flow brimful and equably even 

 at the height of summer. They arose from reason- 

 able despair, and will disappear at the touch of 

 reasonable hope. Already, most notably in England, 

 as is shown in Chapter ix., there is a marked awaken- 

 ing. Even among those who are not sportsmen, 

 there are many signs of a growing sense that the 

 rivers should be full and pure ; and there never was 

 a time when those who do fish, a class becoming 

 larger and more influential year by year, were so 

 anxious that opportunities for sport should not be 

 wantonly destroyed. Storage, which solves the 



