OF ENGLAND. 13 



The value of a salmon fishery depends upon the 

 extent of its breeding ground. The three rivers at 

 Waterford contain an area of 3,400 square miles, and 

 have at least a produce of salmon, amounting to 

 40,000 a-year, whereas the Severn has an area of 

 4,437 square miles, but with seventy-three weirs, and 

 the produce may be taken at about one-sixth part of 

 that amount. 



The Report of the Special Commissioners, Ireland, 

 1865, states that 11,333 men are employed in the 

 salmon fisheries ; the gross amount of Licence duties 

 amounted to 6,722 16s. 8d. They say, " In salmon 

 fisheries protection produces fish, and fish provide the 

 money wherewith protection may be purchased." 



The Licence duties on the Shannon, with an area 

 of 4,544 square miles, amounted so 1,531 10s. Od. 

 In the Waterford district, with an area of 3,400 

 square miles, they produced 1,158. 



The Weirs on the Thames have done more to- 

 wards exterminating the Salmon in that river than 

 even the pollutions of London, inasmuch as theTyne, 

 although fearfully polluted at Newcastle and BELOW, 

 is clear of Weirs and obstructions ABOVE, and is 

 therefore one of our best English Salmon Rivers. 



The Thames Navigation Act, 1 866, prohibits, under 

 a heavy penalty, directly or indirectly, the opening into 

 the River Thames, or into any watercourses within three 

 miles communicating with it, any new sewage or any 

 other offensive or injurious matter into the Thames ; 

 and as to such channels as before the passing of the Act 

 had conveyed sewage or other deleterious matter into 

 the Thames that if after a sufficiently long notice, 

 which might be further extended by the Board of 

 Trade, the flow of all deleterious matters were not 

 stopped, those through whose neglect it happened 

 should be guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to a 



