DAMAGE BY FLOODS IN RIVERS PREVENTION. 649 
there is this to be said—the damage by floods arises from 
different causes, and it is reasonable to suppose that there- 
fore no one universal remedy is feasible, nor that it is 
possible to protect every place which is expased to damage. 
The most ancient remedy is still the most popular; that 
ic, to protect flooded land by embankments. I have shown 
that there are great risks and great inconveniences attending 
this method, and from the rising of the river-bed it is not 
in the long run a permanent remedy. I have also remarked 
above, that lowering the river-bed is equivalent to raising 
the banks; therefore, in such places as are reasonably 
possible to:protect from flood, it seems that a combination 
of the two methods would be the most likely to be success- 
ful; and where the river deposits alone constitute the 
bettom, recent improvements in dredging machines enable 
the bottom to be lowered at a cost hitherto undreamt of— 
thus the high power dredges now being used are said to 
dredge sand and silt, and deposit the spoil on the banks, at 
a cost of 14d. per cubic yard. 
In a district afflicted with floods, it is generally found 
that the adjacent river is very crooked, of greatly varying 
width, and obstructed with sand-banks and shoals. To 
treat such a river with the view of abating the damages 
from floods, the first thing should be to straighten it as 
much as possible, which will increase the declivity or slope ; 
next to dredge a wide and deep channel through the shoals, 
always keeping this channel in the natvral axis or run of the 
current ; this will increase the velocity of the stream, so 
that with increased capacity of the waterway, and increased 
velocity of flow, the height of the flood will be reduced ; 
but if this is not sufficient, then it must be supplemented 
by embanking the land. 
In the eagerness to protect the land from floods, 
immediate relief and benefit is generally sought, to the ex- 
clusion of all. other considerations, and it is difficult if not 
impossible to induce people to act with a view to the future 
instead of the present; besides which, action is generally 
first taken by individual sufferers trying to protect each 
his own holding, and it is not till after many failures by 
private people’ that the Government steps in to assist. 
Some people are great sticklers for following what they 
call the laws of Nature. Nature, however, has no laws 
properly so called, but rather certain effects are sure to 
follow certain causes; the requirements of man are, how- 
ever. often directly opposed to Naturé and its ways; and 
if he is determined to have what he wants, Nature must 
often be resolutely set aside. 
