164 The Lincolnshive Keu per Escarpment. | 
when the river flowed at a higher level, before the existence of the 
Trent valley) to Marton, where we meet with the first serious — 
break in its continuity ; and the first bank made by the Romans _ 
to keep the flood-waters of the Trent away from their colony on 
the Lindis river. Here, a little way beyond the village of Marton, 
the cliff recedes eastwards towards Brampton, having been cut 
back and worn away by floods which have left traces of their tracks 
on its side. Passing on to Torksey we find another break through 
the line of the escarpment, on the north side of the church, 
which also admitted the flood-waters of the river; after which, 
a little further on, we come to the Foss Dyke—shown in the 
accompanying photograph—which was constructed by the 
Romans to put Lincoln into communication with the Trent. 
About two hundred yards from the entrance to this Dyke 
the Trent waters are kept in check by a lock, and the stream 
flows on to Lincoln, joining the rivers Till and Witham on its way. 
After which the combined stream, under the name of the latter 
river, passes on to Boston and falls through another lock into the 
sea; and so level is the land the whole way—a distance of about 
forty-three miles—that only two intermediate locks are required— 
one at Lincoln and the other at Bardney—to hold up the water 
and render navigation practicable. 
The part of the escarpment we are now entering on has been 
so well described by the late Mr. J. S. Padley, in his valuable 
book, on the “Fens and Floods of Mid-Lincolnshire” (a work. 
that was published by subscription and so is not generally 
accessible), that Icannot do better than use, as far as possible, his 
own words in dealing with the district. Mr. Padley, whose kindly, 
courteous manner will be recalled by many of us with pleasure, — 
had gathered much information about the flooding of this area by 
the waters of the Trent breaking through the escarpment ; and, in 
his work alluded to above, he says: ‘Before the time of the 
Romans, every flood of the Trent flowed down to Lincoln. A 
range of low sandhills extends from the village of Girton in — 
Nottinghamshire to Marton Cliff in Lincolnshire,” and in this low — 
region he describes five openings through which the water was 
accustomed to flow ; the first, and the most southerly one, was in — 
