Note 1435 — FLOATING OF WOOD.

H. Junii Batavia. Lugd. Bat. 1558, 4to, p. 327.—Hugo Grotius de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicæ, cap. 4.—Délices de la Hollande. Amst. 1685, 12mo, p. 218: “Les Wassenaers tiennent leur origine d’une village qui est entre Leiden et la Haye, ou des droits qu’ils eurent les siecles passez sur les eaux, les estangs et les lacs de la Hollande.”—-Those who are fond of indulging in conjecture might form the following conclusion:—The lakes and streams belonged to the Wassenaers, who kept swans, geese and ducks upon them. When the brewers were desirous of clearing the water from the duck-weed, which in Fritsch’s German Dictionary is called Enten-grutz, in order that it might be fitter for use, they were obliged to pay a certain sum to obtain permission; and when the practice of floating timber began, the floats disturbed the ducks, and destroyed the plant on which they fed, and the proprietors of floats were on this account obliged to pay a certain tax also. But was it customary at that period to float timber in the Netherlands?