INTRODUCTORY 3 



tions in the shape of waterfalls. The Spey and the Tay are each a 

 hundred miles long. The Dee and Tweed are almost that length, 

 while the Findhorn, Deveron, Don, and Forth follow closely. In the 

 last mentioned the requirements of man have to a considerable 

 extent interfered with the arrangements of nature, for Glasgow has 

 carried off an enormous quantity of water which under normal con- 

 ditions should have found its way to the eastern seaboard. A 

 proposal for a similar transference of water to the west coast, in the 

 interests of a commercial undertaking, was frustrated by the salmon 

 fishing interests of the Tay. 



This question of water supply, either for domestic and industrial 

 purposes or for power, is one which is bound to bulk more largely as 

 our population increases and our enterprise extends. Projects of 

 considerable magnitude are constantly being laid in the industrial 

 incubator. The huge operations at Kinlochleven are just completed, 

 other schemes will take definite shape before long. The very high 

 value of salmon fisheries is often growled against by angling tenants, 

 but this very factor is the one of all others which safeguards our 

 stock of fish in certain districts. If the fishings were not of very 

 great value, water rights would more easily be obtained, and, as a 

 Scotsman is reported to have said in evidence before a Salmon 

 Fisheries Commission, " It's a weel kent fac' in oor country that 

 where there's nae water there can be nae fush." 



Pollution is another danger which threatens salmon fisheries. In 

 the thinly populated country districts, notably in the Highlands, this 

 question does not trouble, and is not likely to trouble. In the Low- 

 lands, however, and wherever the modern tendency of our population 

 to congregate in towns obtains, the danger of pollution becomes 

 greater every day. The various reports of the Sewage Disposal 

 Commission are most illuminating reading as to the complex char- 

 acter of many of the effluents which have to be combated. As a 

 Scotsman dealing only with Scottish salmon rivers, I am devoutly 

 thankful that we have nothing approaching what is reported as 

 characteristic of many rivers in the Midlands of England. The 

 chemists of the Commission just referred to have, however, produced 

 most substantial arguments and demonstrations in favour of bacterial 

 methods of purification. In Scotland the methods have been applied 

 to the extremely toxic bye-products of whisky making with marked 

 success. In the account of the Spey a description will be found of 

 a severe test made upon salmon eggs and fry with the purified pot 

 ale from the Commission's bacterial filter at Coleburn Distillery. 



