The question is not so much
whether the salmon can come up, as whether the smolts, or young salmon,
could get down through the polluted water. But the experiments made are
interesting and deserve every encouragement, and it may be hoped that
money will be forthcoming to make more.
As regards other fish than salmon, their return has been going on steadily
since 1890; and their advance has covered a distance of some twenty
miles--from Gravesend to Teddington. The first evidence was the
reappearance of whitebait, small crabs, and jelly-fish at Gravesend in
1892. In 1893 the whitebait fishermen and shrimp-boats were busy ten miles
higher than they had been seen at work for many years. The condenser tubes
of torpedo-boats running their trials down the river were found to be
choked with "bait," and buckets of the fish were shown at the offices of
the London County Council in Spring Gardens. It was claimed that this
evidence of the increased purity of the water was mainly due to the
efforts of the Main Drainage Committee of the London County Council. There
is abundant evidence that this claim was correct, for instead of allowing
the whole of the London sewage to fall into the Thames at Barking and
Crossness, the County Council used a process to separate all the solid
matter, and carried it out to sea.
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