SAXMON-FISHEEY OP SCOTLAND; 109 



principle of the l&vd of the tide, Only rendering it iaore-ridicu- 

 loTis ■^y applying it to the lottom instead of the surface of the 

 ■water (perhaps on the ground that truth lies at the bottom of 

 the well), in order, as he expresses it, " to ascertain the point 

 at which the level of the sea touches the land under the supari 

 stratum of fresh, or drainage water ; " and. Upon this principle/ 

 which he assures the Court proved quite satisfactory in the 

 Thames and the Dee, in proving both rivers to be the sea, he 

 declares the part in question, where he admits the water to be 

 qmte fresh above, and only brackish at the bottom, to be the SEA !* 

 Having settled this point so satisfactorily, and in a way so cohf 

 sonant with science, if not with common sense, he next tellS 

 the Gourt that he has farther discovered, that " the waters of 

 the frith obey the same general law which regulates the ocean; 

 being thereby affected in their flux and reflux ;" in other wordsj 

 that the tide ebbs and flows there just as it does elsewhere. 



We were anxious to. see how these great discoveries, which 

 were to remove the puzzles of the judges and settle the distracted 

 rights of parties in all time coming, woul4 be received by the 

 Court— and no doubt the discoverer was just as anxious himself 

 to witness his triumph, and to receive the compliments of the 

 Court on the occasion. Unfortunately the matter came before 

 an Ordinary, qui en savait plus que lui—ih& Lord MoncreifP, 

 whose superior mind saw through the whole juggle at Once — - 

 and xho treated the superstratum of 'drainage water and the 

 /resA-water sea with utter contempt ; but it was paid for. It 

 is a common practice with the Court of Session to make remits 

 of this kind to men, whose reports, not being made on oath, can 

 be of no, value, or have any other effect than to increase expense 

 upon litigants. We have seen many such remits to land- 

 surveyors, agriculturists, and dabblers in science, but we have 

 never seen pne where the business was not, to all appearance, 

 jobbed. 



In the Cromarty Prith stake-nets are stiU in their full gloryj 



and the rivers nearly useless. In the river Alness, which dis^ 



charges itself into that frith, and where, of yore, dozens of 



salmon might be anigled in a forenoon, scarcely a fish is now to 



• Jhjs ia oxactlj the' case in the -Thames at Woolwich^ 



