58 
THE BREAKING OF THE SHROPSHIRE MERES. 
reputation of never assuming this condition, and I am told that the 
barge men on the Shropshire Canal, which runs near this mere, 
have long been in the practice of taking on board their boats a 
supply of water from it. It is very natural that people thus incon¬ 
venienced should have long ago invented a name for this defilement 
of the water, hence they call it £ breaking ’ in allusion to an appear¬ 
ance with which they were familiar in the process of brewing ale, 
when the wort is in the act of fermentation. This is the common 
name applied to it in the neighbourhood of Ellesmere, but in other 
parts of the county it is occasionally called “ cruddling,” from its 
likeness to the curdling of milk. The Germans speak of it as 
Wasser-bluthe , i.e., water blossom, and the French name is of 
similar meaning, viz., Les Fleurs d’Fau. 
Various popular explanations have been given of the “ breaking,” 
the one more generally accepted being that it was produced by the 
seeds of aquatic plants growing on the margin of the meres, a 
theory not improbable on the face of it, because the “ breaking ” 
generally occurs in the autumn, when plants begin to drop their 
seeds, and the green bodies forming the floating scum resemble in 
some instances minute seeds. Mr. G. Christopher Davies, in his 
book entitled “ Mountain, Meadow, and Mere,” suggested the 
breaking was caused by the well-known American weed (Anacharis 
Alsinastrum), but this explanation involved an amusing anachronism, 
for it was observed long before that plant was introduced into 
Britain. Mr. Thomas Southwell, in a gossipy article on “ Eels ” in 
“ Longman’s Magazine ” of November last, evidently had before his 
eyes a case of breaking, and as evidently did not understand its 
cause. He says :—“ I call to mind a lake about five acres in 
extent, surrounded on three sides by houses and gardens of a small 
town, and on the fourth side by an open field. As might be expected, 
the ‘ meer ’ was the receptacle of many unconsidered trifles ; and in 
warm summer time, especially in time of drought, it became simply 
alive with countless millions of infusoria [sic], but it also contained 
large numbers of eels. Should the hot and dry weather long 
continue, a curious phenomenon takes place. The mere is said to 
be sick; that the eels are so there can be no doubt. When a 
March, 1893. 
