The Lincolnshire Keuper Escarpment. 165 
the township of Spaldford ; the second in the parish of Newton: 
the third near the south side of the Foss Dyke, at its entrance 
into the Trent; the fourth in the parish of Torksey, on the north 
of the church; and the fifth in the township of Brampton—the 
fourth and fifth being those near Torksey and Brampton which - 
we have already alluded to. “Doubtless these openings (Mr. 
Padley goes on to say), were embanked by the Romans, but since 
their time, being neglected, the banks have broken at different 
periods, and allowed the flood-water to inundate the country down 
to Lincoln, and so into the Fens.” The Spaldford Bank was the 
most dangerous, and Mr. Padley gives an interesting description 
of some of the great floods that came from that quarter. One of 
them, in 1795, flooded great parts of Nottinghainshire and 
Lincolnshire, and covered nearly twenty thousand acres west of 
Lincoln, the water there being dammed up by the High Street ; 
while the flood-mark at the time “was nearly eight feet above 
the ordinary water in the Foss Dyke, or ten feet above the present 
level of the land.’ Other floods which did great damage are 
mentioned by Mr. Padley up to the years 1852 and 1877; but it is 
well known that the Trent has repeatedly broken through its 
banks, not those made by the Romans only, but others as well, 
almost down to the present day; and parts of Lincoln and 
Gainsborough, and many of the villages around have suffered 
from floods, which, however, in these days of precaution are 
_ happily getting less frequent ; while skating in severe, wet winters 
from Lincoln, and even from Gainsborough, to Boston, over the 
flooded area, has occasionally been possible. 
It will be noticed that Mr. Padley in his description of this 
area makes no mention of the Cliff at Newton, nor of the escarp- 
ment, beyond speaking of “a range of low sandhills” between 
_ Girton and Marton. The escarpment, however, after leaving 
_ Torksey, is plainly discernible, though at a low elevation, skirting 
the east side of the Trent, while at Newton it forms a conspicuous 
object known as the ‘“ Newton Cliff,” a photograph of which, 
_ through the kindness of Mr. H. Preston of Grantham, we.aze able 
to produce. Either Mr. Padley hadno knowledge of the escarp- 
ment, or, what is more probable, took no notice of it beyond the 
