but I will leave
this point for T. G. to explain.--G. H., _Finedon Hall_.

_Reply to the foregoing._

Many thanks to G. H. for his second letter on this subject. It
appears to me that we think very much alike about Eels.

He says his pond is fifty miles from the sea; "therefore, how is
it that these little Eels get no larger in their long and tedious
journey? interrupted as it is by numerous and almost insurmountable
obstacles, before they could reach the little ditch, three-quarters
of a mile long, which would conduct them to our pond? and last of
all, after this long and tedious journey, within a hundred yards
of their destination, they would have to climb four waterfalls and
a perpendicular sluice-board. It appears to me they should have
grown much larger than a common tobacco-pipe during that time; but
I will leave that point to T. G. to explain."

This is so fairly put, that I will tell what I have seen, hoping
that this will be a sufficient explanation.

In June, 1850, I chanced to go down to the bank of the Ribble, and
there I saw a column of small Eels steadily making their way up
the stream. I should suppose there might be fifty in every lineal
yard, for they kept pretty close to the bank, apparently because
they met with less resistance from the stream, and without
pretending to accuracy I supposed they travelled at the rate of a
mile an hour. This was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and I
went to look for them about nine in the evening--they were still
going in one unbroken column. How long they had been going when I
first saw them, and how long they continued to go after my second
visit, I don't know, but many thousands--perhaps millions--must
have passed that day. At this rate (of a mile an hour) they would
have required little more than two days to reach G. H.'s pond,
fifty miles from the sea; but he says they had to pass over three
or four waterfalls and a perpendicular sluice-board. If these
waterfalls and the sluice-board were covered with moss, they would
climb them as readily as a cat does a ladder. I have seen them in
swarms at a perpendicular weir here, winding their way through the
damp moss with which the stones are covered; but this was not all:
where there was no moss, the little things seemed to have the
power of adhering to the perpendicular face of the stones, like so
many snails. I must not omit to remark, that although they seemed
to choose the margin of the stream for the sake