FLOOD LANDS AND WATER SUPPLY. 91 



the ten years' record is not enough, and that 

 an abnormal flood, like that which swept away 

 the bridge at Brisbane, upsets all their 

 calculations. 



Nothing so strikes the attention of a visitor 

 to hilly and wooded tropical districts, during 

 the dry season, than the vast disproportion 

 between a tiny stream trickling through a large 

 bed of sand, and the enormous span of a new 

 iron bridge which carries the road or the 

 railway across the nullah. Yet in England 

 especially in the whole length of the Thames 

 valley one is almost forced to the conclusion 

 that intelligence has been sadly wanting or has 

 been sacrificed to greed as evidenced by the 

 gradual reclamation of the flood lands. 



Had the river Thames been conserved, in the 

 literal sense of the word, there would neither 

 have been floods in one year, nor a severe 

 drought in another. Anyone who walks along 

 the banks of a river can see fairly accurately 

 what difference a rise of one foot, or two feet, 

 will make as regards the retention of the stream 

 in its normal bed. When the rise amounts to 

 four and five feet, owing to heavy rain in the 

 upper or hilly districts, it is evident that the 

 water requires an outlet, through natural or 

 artificial * Khors ' or channels, into some 

 adjacent low lying land, where it can remain 

 for days or weeks until the season changes and 

 the stream subsides. 



Where adequate flood lands are provided, as 

 they are by nature, it is often possible to 



