3 4 LAND WON FROM THE SEA 



years later an offer was made to repair the dam for 

 4400, but this fell through. No one thought it 

 worth while to spend the money, though small arms 

 and creeks of the harbour were from time to time 

 banked off and reclaimed by adjacent landowners. 

 The attempt which had baffled Sir Hugh Myddelton 

 was suddenly revived by the Liberator Directors seven- 

 teen years ago. The sea was banked out, almost on 

 the lines of Sir Hugh Myddelton's dam ; a straight 

 channel, of double the size necessary for the mere drainage 

 of the higher levels, cut for the passage of the river 

 and the holding of its waters during high-tide, when 

 the sluices are automatically closed ; and a railway and 

 quay were added, with a hotel at Bembridge. Solid 

 and costly as their embankment was, the sea broke in, 

 steam-engines and machinery were toppled from the 

 dykes and buried in the mud, workmen were drowned, 

 and the whole enterprise was within an ace of becoming 

 a little Panama. But at last the sea was beaten, 643 

 acres of weltering mud were left above water, and the 

 reclamation, such as it is, is probably won for ever. 

 But at what a cost ! Four hundred and twenty 

 thousand pounds are debited to the Brading reclama- 

 tion, of which last sum we may assume that 100,000 

 were expended on the railway, quay, and buildings, 

 leaving 320,000 as the price of six hundred and 

 forty-three acres of sea-bottom. 



As reclamation of mud-flats and foreshores has 

 lately been much advocated as a means of providing 

 " work and wages," and of adding to the resources of 



