been favoured with your address through the politeness of Sir
Thomas Winnington, to a friend of mine, and as he requests that
any suggestion about weirs may be addressed to you, I make no
apology for enclosing the letter I had addressed to Mr. Pakington
with some further suggestions, which on looking over my letter I
find I have omitted to notice.

In one of the clauses of the bill (I do not remember which, and I
have not the bill at hand to refer to) you require that a grating,
the bars of which shall not be more than three inches distant from
each other, and which shall be placed at the junction of the tail-
goit with the river, as well as in front of the wheel. This I
presume is to prevent any fish being injured by the wheels, but I
assure you that during the twenty-two years in which I have had
the management of the works here, I never knew an instance of a
Salmon being either killed or hurt by the wheels. Indeed, I do not
know half-a-dozen instances of Salmon ever ascending the tail-goit
to the wheel, and I must have seen many instances if this was a
common occurrence. This may, however, happen, and the fish may be
occasionally injured where there is much fall lost, and a strong
stream running from a wheel constituted in the old way with open
float boards. But the objections to such a plan on the part of the
manufacturers will be insuperable, in fact, the accumulation of
sticks and leaves in the autumn, and ice in the winter, will be so
great at the grating in the tail-goit, that the wheels will be
thrown into back water and the works stopped, and all this loss
and inconvenience will be incurred because of the possibility of a
Salmon being killed or hurt by the wheel. There is not much
probability of this frequently happening, because, as I said in my
other letter, Salmon seldom migrate except where there are freshes