dams being broken in turn to let the rafts through, and then re- 

 constructed. We here see a process which may have suggested 

 the first canal loch. Rough as this method was, a similar one 

 is still largely practised in the mountain districts of France 

 in floating timber, where it is known as " Plottage a buches 

 perdues ;" the difiFerence being that in this flottage the trunks of 

 the trees are thrown in loose, and swept down at random by 

 the rush of water. The same plan is used in America. 



It is exceedingly difficult to condense into a paper like this 

 all the details that are deserving of notice ; and since the fore- 

 going has been in type I have been enabled, by the kind aid of 

 H. Y. J. Taylor, to obtain some further information bearing 

 on the subject. He tells me that the dam of the Abbey Mill 

 was found a few years ago, in building the Bishop's Palace ; a 

 number of stakes or piles being driven into the bed of the stream 

 to form it. He further tells me of a tradition of old Severn 

 watermen, that in " old times" a branch of the Eiver ran inside 

 part of the ground now covered by the Docks and the County 

 Prison. This is confirmed by ancient maps ; as well as by the 

 quantity of " made ground," mud, &c., that had to be removed 

 to get a foundation for the chimney of the Mill, on the north 

 side of the smaller dry dock. 



These traditions taken by themselves would be of no weight ; 

 but as part of a body of cumulative evidence we cannot ignore 

 them. That the " Ditch" was very wide near its junction with 

 the Severn we see from its having required a two-arched bridge 

 as late as the beginning of this century. The part below this 

 bridge was, and is still, called " The Island." The spot where 

 it stood was known till within the last ten or twelve years 

 as " Foreign bridge, " or " Farden bridge." 



I have just " interviewed" Richard Price, an octogenarian, 

 for 60 years commander of a barge on the Severn, now resident in 

 the " Bartlemas," who remembers this " Farden Bridge," as he 

 calls it, as a stone one, of two arches. In Speed's map (1610) 

 it is shown as a bridge of three arches. In Leland's Itinerary, 

 two generations earlier still, it is described as " Foreign Bridge," 

 and of seven arches. The stream must have gradually silted up. 



