46 ° : REPORT—1845. 
Norfolk) fell into the sea at Lynn.—In the preceding account all the old artificial 
drains, and several minute bifurcations of the rivers, after they reached the great 
alluvial delta, are intentionally omitted. 
As early as the 12th century the accumulations of alluvial silt near the mouths of 
the Welland and Nene, caused a great back-water which overspread some of the 
lower portions of the Bedford Level. The formation of great tracts of peat-bog was 
the necessary consequence, by which the levels of the fen-lands were changed, and 
the river courses still further interrupted; and as early as the 13th century the out- 
fall of the waters through some of the old channels had almost entirely failed. Mean- 
time the bed of the Little Ouse, not having been exposed to the same accidents, was 
much below the level of the great alluvial delta that extended to the mouths of the 
other rivers above mentioned. A great drain was therefore cut from Littleport Chair 
to Rebeck, making the first direct communication between the Great and Little Ouse. 
The effect was just what might have been anticipated. Not only the waters of the 
Great Ouse, but the back-waters which had been pent up at a higher level in the 
interior of the delta, descended with irresistible force through this new drain into 
the channel of the Little Ouse, and so escaped into the sea at Lynn. About this 
time the outfall below Spalding had so completely failed, that the waters of the 
Welland found their way through the Catswater into the Nene; and a reverse direc- 
tion having been given to all the main currents, in consequence of a channel being 
thus opened below the level of the ancient outfall at Wisbeach, all the back-waters of 
the Welland, and all the united waters of the Nene, now flowed into the Great Ouse 
through the Old West-water, through the Welney branch, and through all the great 
cross-drains of the neighbouring country, and were then conveyed by the new cut into 
the Little Ouse and so entered the sea at Lynn. In this way, for many years after- 
wards, nearly all the waters of the great level, to the south of the Witham, had their 
outlet at Lynn; and the Little Ouse (now confounded with the Great Ouse), which 
had formerly run between banks not more than twelve perches asunder, became, in 
consequence of the changes above mentioned, more than a mile wide. Many attempts 
were made to prevent this unnatural discharge of nearly all the waters of the Bed- 
ford Level by one channel at Lynn (formerly called, as before stated, the Little Ouse). 
Thus, in 1292 several dams were constructed across the Upwell channel to prevent 
the back-waters of the Nene from joining the Ouse. But they produced such ruin- 
ous effects on many tracts of fen-lands, some of them bordering on the upper parts 
of the Ouse itself, that in 1332 they were destroyed under the direction of a parlia- 
mentary commission ; and for many years afterwards the great drainage of the delta 
was effected in the manner above described. Notwithstanding the very indirect na- 
ture of this drainage, which conveyed the greater part of the waters of the Welland, 
the Nene and the Ouse into the sea by the Lynn channel, the fens appear, during 
many subsequent years, to have been in a good condition, a fact which can only be 
explained by the low level of the new outfall. In course of time however the new 
channels began to silt up, and new works became necessary to prevent the ruinous 
effects of the consequent back-water. In 1490 the discharge of the Ouse was par- 
tially relieved by a cut (called Morton’s Leam) from Peterborough to Guyhirn and 
Wisbeach. It was intended to convey the waters of the Nene to their ancient out- 
fall at Wisbeach ; but it was never entirely effective till the year 1638, when Ver- 
muyden (under the direction of King Charles I.) erected high banks on each side of 
the Leam, and opened out a better channel to the sea. Since then the Nene has 
continued to flow, by its ancient out-fall, into the sea below Wisbeach. About the 
same time other great works were undertaken and were continued in succession by 
two Earls of Bedford. Two great cuts were made from Erith to Salter’s Lode, a 
distance of about twenty miles, and were completed in 1648. By these channels 
(now called the old and new Bedford rivers) the waters of the Ouse, instead of their 
former devious course by Cottenham and Ely, were conveyed, by two unbending lines, 
down the great fen on the north-west side of the Ely and Haddenham outlier before 
mentioned ; and from Ely to Salter’s Lode (near Denver) the old channel of the Ouse 
now carried only the waters of the Cam and its tributaries. These new works, how- 
ever beneficial in other respects, appear from the first to have injured the low lands 
bordering on the Cam, and the old channel of the Ouse between Ely and Salter’s 
Lode; for the new straight channels of the Ouse were not cut down to the level 
