JULY 157 



and most abundant everywhere, down to the very 

 verge of the poisonous flood. It is the old story of 

 corruptio optimi; just as there is no more lovable, 

 irresistibly attractive object in the landscape than a 

 clear running river, so there is none so hideously de- 

 pressing than a polluted one. Grass may be grimy, 

 trees cankered and smirched, yet these renew their 

 brief verdure every spring, and for a while make brave 

 show in the sunlight; but there is no kindly season 

 for the poisoned stream. Month after month it rolls 

 its inky flood, spewing tainted foam in the rapids and 

 greasy scum in the deeps; no dancing ephemerids 

 haunt its sullen wave, no waterfowl its reedless banks ; 

 its never ending office is to bear an obscene freight 

 of drowned puppies and cats, evil rags and (unloveliest 

 flotsam of civilisation) torn newspapers. It was bad 

 enough when, as happened in 1894, not for the first 

 time, the sudden release of mineral waste from Dal- 

 mellington pits swept havoc down the channel of 

 Burns's Bonny Doon. Thousands of salmon and trout 

 were destroyed in a single night ; but at least that was 

 a transitory calamity. Doon now runs once more with 

 a current as limpid, and sings a melody as sweet, as 

 she did when Coel Hen, irreverently known among 

 ourselves as Old King Cole, reigned in that land. But 

 how many of our English and Scottish streams, not 

 less richly fraught with historic and poetic association 

 than the Doon, have been turned permanently into 

 cloacce, sickening to gods and men ! Even in Ireland, 

 where there are no mines and few manufactures, 



