246 FISHING GOSSIP. 
a few curious illustrations of the jumbling-up of fact 
and fiction in matters piscine or piscatorial, which 
may not perhaps be altogether uninteresting, or at 
least unamusing, as examples of the sort of science 
current within the last couple of centuries. A 
belief, for instance, in igneous waters, underground 
streams, haunted wells and fountains, and generally 
in preposterous or non-existing eccentricities of river 
administration, appears to have been very common. 
Here are a few authentic specimens of quast 
“WATERS BEWITCHED.” 
G. Nelson, Rector of Oakley, in Suffolk, in an old 
work by Dr. Grew, says, “I would not embellish this 
book with fiction, because I intend to serve the Truth. 
And yet in the next page we find: 
“The water of the river Thames is very remark- 
able, being tempered with some kind of acid, which 
it licks from its banks. . . . The mariners are 
forced to hold their noses when they drink it, yet it 
does not make them sick; and after a third or 
fourth fermentation, it becomes very sweet ; whereas. 
other water is irrecoverable, and dangerous after its 
stinking. This water in eight months’ time acquires 
so spirituous and active a quality, that upon opening 
a cask and holding a candle near the bung its steams 
have taken fire like the spirits of wine, and some- 
times endangered the ship.” 
