Reclamation of Land from the Sea. 667 



and the kind of material. If the material had been softer the slopes 

 would have been flatter. Neither could general rules be laid down as 

 to where land could be reclaimed. All that coxdd be said was that if 

 the land was worth 30Z. an acre when reclaimed, not more than 15/. 

 or 20/. ought to be laid out upon it. If the cost was greater, it was 

 much better to buy land ready made. Slopes covered with soil and 

 sods were, in his opinion, utterly inadequate to resist the sea, imless 

 there were a very large foreshore and shallow water. If the foreshore 

 was flat and very wide, an embankment possessing a slope of two to 

 one covered with sods was practicable. No sloi:)e of such a descrip- 

 tion, however, should be relied upon to resist the action of the sea. 

 In the Mediterranean the French made all their barriers against the 

 sea by blocks of stone of some 20 tons each, which they found stood 

 to a slope of one to one, and if they were a third the size they would 

 be two to one, and so on. 



Mr. Fkere said the outline of the sea-wall at Algiers was at first 

 concave ; but it had been foimd better to substitute a convex outline, 

 along which the waves would run, instead of gathering inwards towards 

 the centre of the cui've with concentrated force. 



Mr. Harding said he had had considerable experience of the recla- 

 mation of lands during many years' residence at King's Lynn. For 

 twenty years he had had a considerable portion of the fen lands under 

 his control, and had, in the capacity of contractor, executed nearly 

 200,000/. of work. His first undertalring was a sea embankment near 

 Louth. It was at the entrance to the Hmnber, and there were un- 

 doubtedly different slopes there. The first portion of the bank was 

 silt ; then they came to a strong clay ; and the slope varied from sis 

 to one to three to one, according to the position and the manner in 

 w^hich the bank was struck by the tide. On the Norfolk coast, 

 between Cromer and Wells, there was a bank 4 miles long, and there 

 the slopes were five to one, the material being of clay. In Norfolk 

 and Lincolnshire they saw nothing of stone, which is too costly for 

 reclaiming the land for agricultui-al purposes : 40/. per acre would 

 never cover the expense. In 1839, he remembered. Sir John Eennie 

 devised a plan for inclosing several hundred acres of land on the 

 Wisbech river. It w^as a bold project ; the proposition being to make 

 an immense bank, and cut off the whole of the sea. The contract was 

 undertaken for something like GO, 000/. Every practical man who 

 knew the Fen country said it was impossible to carry it out, because 

 every time there was a spring-tide the large tract of land was covered 

 with water. When the work was partly done it was found that the 

 back water was so great that it was impossible to proceed, and the 

 contractor was ruined. The way to do it would be to run across 

 small embankments, which could be cast up by tool instead of barrow 

 work. This would divide the work into sections, and largely increase 

 the chances of success, because the area of the waterway was gradually 

 reduced. The land would thus be reclaimed piece by piece. The 

 benefit of land depended of course a great deal upon what the land 

 had cost. Sometimes land could be bought from the sea at 2/. or 3/, 

 per acre. On portions of the Norfolk coast the land was very rich, 



