18 SURVEY OF WINDERMERE LAKE. 



must be followed up by an improvement in arte- 

 rial drainage, or floods are inevitable. The water 

 which formerly dribbled away in the course of 

 many days, or even weeks, now gushes out from 

 the drains all at once; and if the main outlets 

 are not enlarged in proportion the waters are 

 thrown back upon the land. This is the case 

 now in the neighbourhood of Windermere, — the 

 meadows and low-lying houses at Ambleside, a 

 mile or two from the lake, being flooded every 

 winter by the overflow of the lake first, then of 

 the river, then of the tributary streams. The 

 steam-yacht companies gave fifty pounds to have 

 the lake deepened at Fell Foot, a few years ago; 

 Mr. White, the proprietor of Newby Bridge hotel, 

 subscribed the same amount : and this was good 

 as far as it went. But a much larger operation is 

 required. There is a weir below Newby Bridge, 

 to serve a corn mill. Now, the days of weirs 

 and watermills are coming to an end. In these 

 days of steam-engines it is not to be endured that 

 hundreds of acres should be turned into swamps, 

 and hundreds of lives lost by fever, ague, and 

 rheumatism, for the sake of a waterpower which 

 pays perhaps thirty pounds or forty pounds a-year. 

 We say this of watermills generally; and in re- 

 gard to the need of sufficient arterial drainage, 

 we speak of the shores of Windermere in par- 

 ticular. The expense of carrying off the utmost- 

 surplus of the waters in the wettest season would 

 be presently repaid, here as anywhere else, by the 

 improved value of the land and house property, 

 relieved from the nuisance of flood. 



The Swan Inn at Newby Bridge is exceedingly 



