164 
NATURE NOTES. 
and adds further gloom to the already dark picture. “ The 
proposed factory will not only destroy the finest waterfall in 
the United Kingdom, it will also emit hydro-fluoric acid gas, 
which will be most destructive to vegetation in the neighbour- 
hood. In addition to this, it appears that the manufacture of 
aluminium will certainly create great spoil banks, which the 
company are under no obligation to remove should they at 
any time suspend operations, nor in the event of such a 
contingency arising are they liable to restore the Lakes of 
Stratherrick to their former levels, or to divert the water again 
to its original channel.” 
One practical evidence of the way in which the operations 
have already affected the neighbourhood is to be found in the 
fact that the Highland steamers to Inverness, which were in 
the habit of waiting at Foyer’s Pier for an hour or so to afford 
passengers an opportunity of visiting the Falls, no longer do so. 
“ When making the trip to Inverness last week,” writes a corre- 
spondent of the Chronicle, “ I found a notice on the steamer in- 
timating that from July 24 last no time will, in future, be allowed 
at Foyers for the purpose mentioned, and on enquiring the reason 
I was informed that the works proceeding at the Falls were now 
considered to be of so dangerous a nature as to render it unsafe 
for tourists by the boats to call there. This in itself speaks 
volumes.” 
Such are, very briefly, the facts of this distressing case. It 
would be easy to dilate further upon them, for the good Fathers 
at Fort Augustus have lent us a scrap-book full of cuttings bear- 
ing on the subject ; but enough has been said to arouse the 
attention of Selbornians and others, though we fear nothing can 
be done to arrest the mischief. 
In spite of societies and agitations, matters of this kind 
are in urgent need of attention. Here is a letter contributed 
to the Chronicle of August 7, appropriately headed, “Where 
is the Commons Preservation Society?” The writer dates 
from Studland, near Wareham, Dorset, and says : — 
“ The country round about the village at which I am staying is strangely 
beautiful. The lord of the manor lives elsewhere, and has let the estate to a 
wealthy London trader. This gentleman is a ‘ gamepreservomaniac,’ and the 
place bristles with barbed wire and notice-boards. There are rabbits — no villager 
dare keep a dog, or^even a cat. The wild picturesque common stretches up to the 
sea-shore. There are notice-boards — ‘ Road only ; private estate ; trespassers 
will be prosecuted.’ And mark that there is no fence around this common, 
which has been free and open from the beginning of time. 
“ Parish council ? It has not met for three months. And please note, the chair- 
man is the vicar, naturally the landlord’s friend ; and could a yearly tenant, unless 
he be a veritable village Hampden, protest against a landlord’s action, be that 
tenant on the parish council or not ? 
“ Sir, enormities of this description are surely perpetrated in every small village 
in the kingdom. The villager is helpless, the visitor merely a bird of passage, 
and too indolent to do more than protest. But is there no association among the 
existing thousands of such bodies that will take up a case such as this ? 
“ There are landless Londoners now spending their holiday in every hole and 
corner of the country, and the air is thick with impotent curses. Why should not 
