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Appendices to Second Annual fieport 



modern times, when Mr Buckland and I inspected the Ayr in 

 1870, one witness whom we examined stated that his father, who 

 was an old man at the time of his death, had the fishings in the 

 mouth of the river before stake or bag nets were used, and that he 

 had heard him speak of catching ' cart-loads ' of salmon by net 

 and coble, and selling them at ljd. per pound. 



A great deal of pollution is stated to be discharged into the Ayr 

 by the cotton-mills at Catrine, belonging to Messrs James Finlay 

 and Co., about 15 miles from the mouth of the river, which were 

 established in the end of last century, and are very extensive. 

 There are also ammonia works at Muirkirk, which are said to 

 send into the river liquids deleterious to fish life ; and the whole 

 of the sewage of the town of Ayr, the slaughter-house refuse, and 

 other impurities, are discharged into the mouth of the river. The 

 New Cumnock News of 6th October 1883, under the heading of 

 ' Muirkirk,' has the following paragraph about the pollution from 

 the ammonia works : — £ Since the opening of the ammonia 

 ' works here, there has been, from time to time, emptied into the river 

 ' Ayr quantities of a liquid refuse, which has the effect of poisoning 

 ' large quantities of the fish with which the river is stocked. One 

 ' party, who is in a position to know, states that he has seen no 

 ' fewer than seventy dead fish within the past few days. This is a 

 ' serious matter, and will doubtless be seen into. But there is even 

 ' a more serious aspect in this matter. Those who have cattle 

 ' pasturing near the water, run the risk of having them poisoned ; 

 ' and apart altogether from the destroying of fish, this damage is not 

 ' to be overlooked. Steps should be taken at once to prohibit the 

 ' emptying of such dangerous refuse into the water before any 

 ' serious damage be done.' There is no District Board on the Ayr, 

 and even if there were, it would be utterly powerless to put a stop 

 to these manifold pollutions, as the clauses in the Salmon Fisheries 

 Acts of 1862 and 1868 to remedy the pollution of rivers and waters 

 have proved notoriously useless. As the law at present stands, it 

 is only a union of the riparian proprietors on the Ayr, founding 

 on the common law rule, that no upper proprietor has a right to 

 pollute the stream to the injury or nuisance of a lower proprietor, 

 that would have any chance of putting an end to the pollutions 

 complained of. Only 400 yards on either side of the mouth of 

 the Ayr is exempted from the operation of stake and bag nets. 

 Beyond and outside this narrow estuary line, they are used during 

 the fishing season in such a way as to capture or intercept the 

 great majority of the salmon seeking the river. 



The Irvine. 



The Irvine rises not far from the battle-field of Drumclog, in the 

 vicinity of Loudon Hill, and runs into the sea, close to the town of 

 Irvine. It is the second in size of the Ayrshire rivers, having a 

 drainage area of 171 square miles, but it is almost entirely ruined 

 as a salmon river by the chemical works at Irvine and the town 

 sewage, and also by the pollutions poured into it from the manu- 



