Page:On the Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom.djvu/51

45 twenty-five rivers, all described in the Inspectors' previous reports as variously polluted, still continued subject to the same various forms of pollution—namely, from lead mines, sewage, tanneries, naptha, petroleum, and chemical works, carpet manufactories, collieries, paper-mills, and from vitriol, gas-tar, &c., &c., such rivers being the Calder, Camel, Cleddy, Dart, Dee, Derwent (tributary of Trent), Dovey, with its tributary, the Twymin, Exe, Fowey, Ribble, Severn, Swale, Tamar and Plym, Tees, Towey, Trent, Tyne, Wear, Usk and Ebbw, Wharfe, Wye, and Yealm; the Inspectors adding that the Ouse (Yorkshire) was polluted near Linton Weir by water in which flax had been steeped, the Devonshire Avon and Erme by a new sail-cloth factory, and that at the outfall of the main drainage an offensive mud-bank was accumulating in the Thames.

As regards the Calder, Mr. Buckland, struck with its frightful state of pollution, in reference to that river says, at page 21: "I went a long way up the River Calder, a fine tributary of the Ribble. The water here is wholly unfitted for fish to live in. It is a question not of fish alone, but of the health of the inhabitants on the banks, and the population on this river is very dense."

Of the way in which the two lead mines on the Twymin (the tributary of the Dovey)—viz., the Dyliffe and Sir John Conroy's—pollute that stream and the Dovey the Inspectors again speak in terms of strong condemnation, Mr. Buckland at page 14 saying that—

"There can be no doubt whatever but that these two mines are doing an immense amount of injury to the fish in the river, and I have written to the proprietors of them, calling their attention to the facts, and earnestly requesting them to take measures to keep the lead washings out of the river, and I do trust they will follow the good example shown by Mr. Beaumont in