14 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



ministered to the "Ettrick Shepherd" and "Christopher North," the 

 Yarrow descends by its " dowie dens " to 



" The shattered front of Newark's Tower, 

 Eenowned in Border story." 



At Bowhill hangs the full-length portrait of Scott by Eaeburn. The 

 house was a favourite residence of the Earl of Dalkeith, to whom 

 Scott inscribed his Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



The north-east boundary of the county of Selkirk is formed by 

 the Gala tributary, which rises in the Moorfoot Hills of Midlothian. 

 From those hills much of Edinburgh's water supply is taken, and 

 the Gala flows clear and limpid over its gravel bed till suddenly, at 

 Galashiels, its waters are turned as if to ink. Galashiels has over 

 14,000 inhabitants, covers an area of 862 acres, and has a rateable 

 value of 63,172. There are many large woollen mills, a tannery, 

 a gas-liquor work, and a chemical manure work, besides the numerous 

 sources of pollution more or less inseparable from the requirements 

 of a town. " It would be impossible to find a river more grossly 

 polluted than the Gala as it passes through Galashiels," say the 

 writers of the report of 1906 already quoted. 



Proceedings have been taken successfully, in the past, against 

 Galashiels and its pollutions, and certain undertakings were entered 

 into. Now at length the municipal authorities are laying down a 

 new system both of drainage and purification. Without doubt the 

 system of purification will be watched as carefully as the demands 

 of the situation require. 



It is convenient here, when touching upon this matter of pollu- 

 tion, to refer to the efforts which are now being made for the general 

 and systematic combating of the evil. In the report of Messrs. 

 Wheaton and Curphey, already referred to, a short review of the 

 situation is given, and from this I will quote. " In the year 1897 

 the County Council of Roxburgh, having had their attention called 

 to the serious and increasing pollution of the river Tweed by liquid 

 refuse of domestic origin as well as by the products of manufacturing 

 processes, decided to endeavour to form a Joint- Commit tee of Sanitary 

 Authorities interested in the condition of the river, with a view to 

 taking action for its purification. With this object the County 

 Council approached the County Council of Northumberland and the 

 County Councils in the Tweed basin in Scotland, proposing a confer- 

 ence of the authorities interested, and through whose districts the 

 river passed, for the purpose of deciding upon an application to the 



