3-077-955 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

View of Loch Long; opposite Blairmore, with the Clyde dredging-barges depositing foul matter, 1890. 'A renewed effort is being made to put a stop to the abominable and unnecessary practice long carried on by the Clyde Navigation Trustees - that of depositing in Loch Long immense quantities of foul and fetid substance, the dredgings of the neighbouring river, polluted by the sewage of the great city of Glasgow and other towns. Loch Long..., surrounded by noble mountains, may be pronounced one of the most beautiful regions of the West Scottish Highlands...There is a huge mud bank in front of the north shore of the Clyde, formed by the quantity of solid matter, including the town sewage, which comes down the river. If it were let alone, it would soon obstruct the navigable channel; and it is, therefore, the duty of the Trustees to remove it; but that they should deliberately carry it up Loch Long, in their "hopper-barges," and drop it there, at the rate of a million and a quarter tons yearly...is an act of barbarous stupidity almost incredible, when they could, at a slight additional expense, take it farther away so as to do no harm to any place or people...the Trustees are now continuing the obnoxious practice without express lawful authority'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.