118 Notes on Gardens and Country Seats. 



in London for carp, which it greatly resembles. The scales of 

 this fish were sold, a few years ago, to the London jewellers for 

 105. 6d. a pint. We also saw here, for the first time in England, 

 the crawfish, of which we had seen, in 1813, great numbers in 

 the moist meadows on the Vistula at Warsaw and Cracow. 

 They are here in little esteem, and are seldom used, though 

 they are there considered as delicate as shrimps, and are thought 

 to make one of the best of soups. We were surprised to find 

 that, though the trout and the pike may be fed advantageously 

 in stews, eels cannot. The manner in which the fish are caught 

 at the weirs here is very simple and ingenious. Below the 

 sluices is placed an iron grating the whole breadth of the stream, 

 and rising nearly to the height of the water in the dam. Beyond 

 the rise it declines into a gutter, which leads to a tank or box at 

 the side. The large fish which are let out by the sluices are 

 thrown over into this gutter, which is also grated, so as to pre- 

 vent their escaping otherwise than down a slope on one side to 

 the box or chest. In this way as many fish are caught as are 

 wanted, and no more, especially eels. 



The Kennet is one of those rivers that exhibit the pheno- 

 menon of ice forming in the bottom, and we were informed here 

 by the Earl of Craven's fisherman, that, in severe winters, the ice 

 forms with such rapidity in those parts of the river that are 

 shallow, and where, of course, the stream is rapid, that, in one 

 night, a complete dam has been formed across the stream, of 

 such a height as to throw the water over the adjoining banks. 

 The water thus thrown over also freezes, and the consequence 

 would be, a complete inundation of the valley above, if the fisher- 

 men did not take effectual means to break up this dam. It is 

 observed that, when the bottom of the river is frozen, one good 

 effect is the result, and this is, that, when it thaws, the pieces of 

 ice, which float up from the bottom, bring all the weeds with 

 them ; thus thoroughly cleaning the river. Observing a circular 

 pond of stagnant water close by the margin of the Kennet, we 

 asked the fisherman whether he had observed what took place 

 in this pond when the river froze at the bottom. He perfectly 

 understood the question, and answered that this pond, and all 

 other stagnant water, froze at top. Some years ago, Mr. T. A. 

 Knight made an attempt to explain the cause of running water 

 freezing first at the bottom, in the Transactions of the Royal Society ; 

 and the same interesting subject has been discussed by various 

 correspondents in our Mag. Nat. Hist., v. 91. 303. 395. 770. ; 

 but the phenomenon has only lately been explained satisfactorily 

 in Jameson's Philosophicaljournal. It is there shown that it pro- 

 ceeds from the motion of the water, mixing the frozen laminae at 

 top with the water below, till the whole mass becomes cooled 

 down to the freezing point, when crystallisation takes place, 



