of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



13 



being the best months. As many as from 13 to 20 sea-trout, 

 averaging 3 lbs., have been taken from the lower pools by a good fisher- 

 man in a single day. The salmon do not run large ; no fish above 20 

 lbs. having ever been captured in it. At Inverkinglass, where the river 

 joins Loch Etive, there was once an iron smelting furnace, and a fine pine 

 forest formerly occupied a great part of the area of the glen ; but the 

 trees were cut down about the middle of last century to supply fuel for 

 the iron furnace. Many other parts of the Black Mount once produced 

 valuable timber, which has now nearly disappeared. 



The water of the Kinglass is remarkably clear, and when I inspected 

 this part of the river it was so low that I could see to the bottom of even 

 the deepest pools. There had been no rain for three weeks, and conse- 

 quently, though it was the 29th of June, not a single salmon or sea-trout 

 had yet ascended. Below the bridge, near the farm of Acharn, there is a 

 large deep pool, which, when the river is in good order, must be a 

 favourite haunt for salmon and sea-trout ; and a good way farther 

 down there is a long stretch of splendid spawning ground, even in the 

 low state of the river, all covered with water. I was told, however, 

 that six or seven years ago, there had been a violent flood in the 

 Kinglass which very much altered and injured the spawning beds 

 generally. But between the Lodge and Loch Etive there is still 

 sufficient spawning ground to afford redds to stock a much larger stream 

 than the Kinglass. 



There is a small loch, called Lochan-na-Turaiche, connected with Loch 

 Dochard, which sends out a burn in the direction of the Kinglass, and it 

 has been proposed to close the communication in the direction of Loch 

 Dochard, and to make a cut diverting the waters of Lochan-na-Turaiche 

 into the Kinglass. In this way the volume of the Kinglass would be 

 increased, and its too clear water be darkened by the mossy water from 

 this small mountain loch. This may be so ; but the operation would be 

 somewhat costly, and I doubt much whether the game would be worth the 

 candle. 



About a mile above the Lodge in Glen Kinglass, there is a waterfall on 

 the river at least 12 feet perpendicular, which entirely stops the ascent of 

 the migratory salmonidae ; and, two miles above this fall, there is another 

 impassable obstruction. By making a subsidiary dam of stones or 

 concrete a little below the first fall, salmon and sea-trout might be enabled 

 to ascend easily, or by blasting a ledge of rock, which juts out from the 

 centre of the fall ; then, above the main fall, there is a long slope of 

 granite, over which the stream runs when the river is high, in a rapid 

 current of white water ; and it would be necessary to form a resting-pool 

 in the centre of the slope in order to enable salmon and sea-trout to get 

 up. It would probably cost at least £100 to make this fall passable, and 

 the two or three pools between it and the second impassable fall, two miles 

 farther up, that would thus be opened up to salmon and sea-trout, would 

 never repay the cost of the operation. 



In Glenkinglass, between the Falls a mile above the Lodge, and two 

 green mounds of earth, a little below it, through which the river has cut 

 its way, there is a large level space sharply marked out, perhaps 1J miles 

 in circumference, which has once evidently been the bed of a lake, and 

 which would become so again if the space between the said green mounds 

 — not a very wide one — were filled up by an artificial dam. This would 

 be the best thing that could happen for the river as it would afford a 

 magnificent shelter for salmon and sea-trout ; but as the Lodge stands 

 nearly in the centre of what would be the bed of the lake, such a scheme 

 could never be carried out. 



