THE SILTING UP OF THE DEE: ITS CAUSE. 55 
the Saltney turn of the Cop (Chester side). At 10-40 a.m. the 
bore passed ; it was a magnificent sight. First long tongues of 
water darted along the sides of the river; then a roaring wave, 
continually breaking as it swept along, followed by others, 
unbroken, in quick succession, for a space of 200 yards. This 
mass, some three feet deep, moved forward at the rate of 
8 1-5th miles an hour. Grand as the spectacle was—witnessed 
as a natural phenomenon, exhibiting the powers and forces 
of nature as it passed—tearing up the sandy bed of the river, 
and hurling it forward in its course—on the other hand it was, 
however, lamentable to reflect on the consequences to Chester 
and her trade that it caused, and one actually created by the 
stupidity of man-—inviting the advancing tide to enter the river 
at Connah’s Quay by a wide mouth, and then decreasing the 
channel from 850 to 285 feet in the course of seven miles. I 
have here samples of the water taken just before the bore passed, 
and five minutes after. The former is, you will observe, muddy, 
because the river had a very heavy fresh in it, but the latter is 
so densely charged, and that too with heavy sand, that it is no 
sooner shaken than the bulk of the sediment immediately falls to 
the bottom of the bottle. The same things take place in the 
river as in these two bottles. The bore charged with heavy 
sand moves forward, pushing it tide by tide higher and higher 
up the Dee until stopped. And where is it stopped? At unfor- 
tunate Chester. There the stupidity of man has further placed 
a causeway, against which the bore rushes to fall back again 
like a giant felled; and as if this were not sufficient, the Canal 
Company tap the fresh-water river at Llangollen, taking from it 
a broad stream of ever-flowing water, which finds its way (by 
way of Chester) into the Mersey, except there should be more 
than is required, then a little trickles over the lock-gates at the 
Lower Basin again into the river. I think the most brilliant 
imagination could not, however, conceive this to be the fine 
stream which flows out of the Dee at Llangollen, in process of 
being returned—with thanks—to the Dee at Chester. If the 
waters of the Upper Dee were not robbed for the Canal, and if 
the bore, instead of being stopped and stunned by the causeway, 
were allowed to flow as far as it could up the river, there would, 
in the going out of the tide, be some compensation for the 
damage it does in coming in. I think there is some scheme on 
foot for putting sluice gates on the causeway to help the scour; 
but if anyone would consider the width of the river to be cleared, 
and the puny force of the largest possible sluice gates to the 
force of the vast volume of water brought in each day by the 
tide in two and a half hours, he will liken the attempt to that of 
the good lady who strove to stop the Atlantic in a storm from 
invading her doorstep by pushing it back with her broom. To 
my mind it might spoil the Upper Dee, while it would be of no 
practical good to the Lower Dee. In the case of the causeway, 
itis allor none. The next question is 
E2 
