110 LOCAL ENGINEERING WORKS. 



adopted as a desirable, if not necessary, precaution against 

 a probable more rapid future discharge. Sir Jobn Coode's 

 Keport estimates the present maximum discharge at eight 

 million cube feet per hour, but adds : " As Mr. Fox has 

 pointed out however, in designing any relief works some 

 allowance should be made for contingencies, and I have 

 previously called attention to the acceleration of the down- 

 ward passage of the water consequent on the removal of 

 obstructions lying in the up-stream side of the city boundary, 

 so that in devising measures for permanent relief it would 

 not be prudent to calculate on a smaller discharge than ten 

 million cube feet per hour, to which an addition should be 

 made for the effect of unfavourable tides in restricting the 

 period when the underfall sluices would be open, and conse- 

 quently reducing the discharge through the Float." Whether 

 the very large, and (as I think) greatly over-estimated, amount 

 of flood v/ater, as given by Messrs. Hawksley and Haj^ter, or 

 the more moderate estimate of nine to ten million cube feet 

 per hour, be taken as correct, it is clear that if the improved 

 Frome channel will discharge only six million cube feet per 

 hour, any excess beyond that quantity must inevitably cause 

 flooding. An idea has been somewhat largely entertained 

 that the Frome floods affect only a comparatively inferior 

 class of house property in and near Mica E-oad. This, 

 however, is a great misapprehension, as the area includes 

 Merchant Street, Newfoundland Road, Broad Weir, Nelson 

 Street, Broadmead, with several important manufacturing 

 and other properties therein. Hitherto it has been assumed 

 that the six million cube feet per hour w^hich the improved 

 Frome channel will convey, will be freely discharged into 

 the Floating Harbour. This, however, is subject to an im- 

 portant qualification. It will not be the case in certain 

 states of the tides in the Avon, when for periods of three 



