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Appendices to Thirty-sixth Annual Report 



drift netting, or "fleeting " in the district. The local poke nets are fished 

 as fully as formerly, there being keen competition to secure the licenses 

 issued by the Burgh of Annan. Some 250 clouts (four pockets to a clout) 

 are fished to the west, and 250 to the east of the Viaduct. Those to the 

 west are let at 7s. 6d., and those to the east at 6s. 6d., the resulting revenue 

 being £175. 



By walking along the shore from Dornock to Browhouses, near Gretna, 

 I was able to see the various effluents coming from the works. There are 

 some eight or ten comparatively small effluents, some of which also contain 

 sewage, while at the upper or eastern end an 18-inch pipe carries off the 

 large amount of domestic sewage from the Gretna Settlement. Of the 

 effluents containing waste products from the works, those at the western 

 or Dornock end are certainly the worst, being not only the most extensive 

 but the most impure. A very small outflow occurs about the centre of the 

 shore line .referred to, which is so acid that a warning against touching it 

 is erected. Another quite small channel was, at the time of my visit, 

 quite dry, while a neighbouring and larger channel was an untouched burn 

 or natural land drainage outflow. 



That the discharge of the waste products should be through a number of 

 channels distributed along the shore line is on the whole an advantage, 

 since there is no great concentration of toxic fluids which could seriously 

 affect the shore and the salmon nets. I saw all the outflows at low tide, 

 and although at two, near the western end, considerable impurity and 

 fungus growth were obvious enough, the effluents disappeared into the sand 

 within about 50 yards of the outfall. At low tide, the sand flats seem 

 to act as absorbents and filters. In course of time it is possible that, as 

 in the case of other filters, considerable impurity may become established, 

 the sand may become charged with a maximum quantity of impurity, and 

 the area of infection may widen, but in the Solway those sand flats are 

 subject to frequent change, and after viewing the conditions established 

 I regard them as less alarming than I had feared. Also the positions 

 chosen for the outfalls do not coincide with the positions of the stake nets, 

 and I anticipate that the nets will be able to be fished without any marked 

 loss attributable to the pollutions. 



With regard to the season's net fishing in this section of the Solway, I 

 am unable to make any very definite statement. The nets along the 

 Scottish side above the Viaduct were not doing so well as the Newbie 

 nets, but the channel of the Solway had travelled away across to the 

 English side, so that the nets were a mile and a half to two miles from the 

 main run of the fish, the intervening space, at low tide, being sand flats. 

 No true test of any changed conditions has yet been possible. 



With regard to the Gretna Sewer and its rather objectionable effluent, 

 I may add that the pollution is at present quite untreated, being poured 

 direct into the tidal portion of the river Esk. There are about 7000 people 

 in the Gretna Settlement, and on sanitary grounds it has seemed desirable 

 that some treatment should be resorted to. I learned that a proposal is on 

 foot to throw down the solids, and, by converting the lower portion of the 

 sewer pipe into a tank, to secure an arrangement by which, by tidal action, 

 an automatic discharge will take place. 



Nith. 



I regret to state that the proposals lately introduced for the improve- 

 ment of the stock of salmon in this district, by the reduction of netting, 

 have been abandoned. With regard to the legality of the methods used 

 in netting below Dumfries Caul, certain proprietors are taking action 

 in the Courts. 



