284 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



violence of a great flood in 1892 was too much for the artificial 

 barriers, and they have not since been renewed. 



From the crest of the Falls of Measach, which is about 615 feet 

 above the sea, and the stream above the Cuileig Fall, which is 

 530 feet up, the river Broom makes such a rapid descent that at a 

 point about two miles lower down it is only 130 feet above sea- 

 level. Thereafter for other two miles the river has a rapid cheery 

 current, splashing round rocks and rippling over gravelly shallows. 

 Lower down the river becomes more uniform in character, with a 

 stony bed fringed by trees. When it reaches the Inverbroom 

 Bridge it is barely 20 feet above sea-level, and has become almost 

 placid in long gentle pools. At the bridge the channel is close to 

 the north side of the glen, but presently it winds across to the 

 opposite side, and forms an imperfect sort of lagoon behind a great 

 talus of gravel, which has been washed by the little river Lael from 

 the northern hillside. The entire contents of this side glen seem to 

 have been poured out upon the mouth of the Broom, and not only 

 the river has been pushed over to the south side of the glen, where 

 it finds its passage to the sea, but the head of Loch Broom has been 

 in great measure shallowed and filled up. The upper end of the 

 lagoon would probably have represented the head of the sea loch 

 but for the debris from the Lael. Loch Broom Church would then 

 have stood at the head of the loch. 



Reference to the church, reminds me that the minister here seems 

 to have a vested right in salmon fishing ex adverse the glebe. I 

 understand that he maintains his right by drawing a net in the tidal 

 pools of these Kirklands of Loch Broom during at least a few nights 

 each season. Netting used also to be carried on in the Linn Pool, 

 but this ceased about twenty years ago. 



As a rule, the Broom holds fish about the middle of May, but in 

 exceptional years, such as 1893 and 1896, for instance, clean fish were 

 taken on the rod on 20th March and llth March respectively. 

 Curiously enough, when the river was netted for ova on three 

 successive Decembers, 2 clean fish were then found, and quite a 

 number of clean sea-trout in the low pools. I have referred else- 

 where to the clean spring sea-trout of the Grimersta. The Broom, 

 like the neighbouring Ullapool river is not what can be called a 

 good sea-trout stream. It is the more singular, therefore, that these 

 fickle fish should be found there in December. 



The average weight of the Broom salmon is practically 10 lb., but 

 weights vary greatly. In some years the heaviest fish have not 



