THE FLOOD OF 1843. 1 9 



few parallels on record ; occurring in a temperate climate, 

 and being the result of rain alone. The description given by- 

 many persons of its approach in the lower districts of the 

 county, forcibly reminds one of the accounts he has read of 

 the advance of the tides in the bay of Fundy, and other 

 places where they attain a great height. Some speak of the 

 water as coming down in a breast of several feet at a time ; 

 others describe it as approaching in waves which followed 

 each other in rapid succession ; but all agree that at one 

 period of the flood, there was an almost instantaneous rise in 

 the water of from five to eight or ten feet. The time at 

 which this extreme rapidity in the rise of the water occurred, 

 was (in most cases) after the streams had become so much 

 swollen as to nearly or quite fill their ordinary channels. The 

 quantity of water required to produce such a phenomenon, 

 was therefore immensely greater, as the valleys of the streams 

 in most places have a transverse section of several hundred 

 feet. The breaking of mill dams, and the yielding of bridges 

 and other obstructions, no doubt contributed in a degree to 

 produce such an extraordinary swell, but we must mainly 

 look for the cause of this sudden rush of waters, to the vio- 

 lence of the rain, if the term rain will apply to the torrents of 

 water which fell in the northern and western sections of the 

 county. 



The rapidity in the fall of the water after the flood had 

 obtained its maximum height, corresponded in a measure 

 with its rise. Chester creek at Flower's mill, was observed to 

 fall ten feet in fifty minutes, or at the rate of one foot in five 

 minutes. Though not so accurately observed, it is probable 

 the other streams fell at a corresponding rate. At the earliest 

 dawn on the following morning, the streams had retired within 

 their ordinary beds, scarcely presenting miniature pictures of 

 the mighty torrents which had swept through their valleys on 

 the preceding evening. 



Commencing on the eastern border of the county, the 

 effects of the flood in the several large streams will be partic- 



