CHAP. II. 



Till-: GREAT LEVEL <>K THE FENS. 



from Denver in Norfolk over the Great Wash to 

 riiarke, and from thence to Marsh and Peterborough, 

 a distance of nearly thirty miles. 1 



The eastern parts of Marshland and Holland were 

 thus the first lands reclaimed in the district, and they 

 were available for purposes of agriculture long before 

 any attempts had been made to drain the lands of 

 the interior. Indeed, it is not improbable that these 

 early embankments thrown up along the coast had 

 the effect of increasing the inundations of the lower- 

 lying lands of the level ; for, whilst they dammed 

 the salt water out, they also held back the fresh, no 

 provision having been made for improving and deep- 

 ening the outfalls of the rivers flowing through the 

 Level into the Wash. The Fen lands in winter were 

 thus not only flooded by the rainfall of the Fens 

 themselves, and by the upland waters which flowed 

 from the interior, but also by the daily flux of the 

 tides which drove in from the German Ocean, holding 

 back the fresh waters, and even mixing with them far 

 inland. 2 



The Fens, therefore, continued flooded with water 

 down to the period of the Middle Ages, when there 

 seems to have been water enough in the Witham to 

 float the ships of the Danish sea rovers as far inland as 

 Lincoln, where ships' ribs and timbers have recently 



1 The causeway was about sixty 

 feet broad, and laid with gravel about 

 three ieet thick. A cutting made 

 across it at Eldernell shows the per- 

 manent manner in which the Romans 

 did their work. It is laid upon the 

 moor, the lowest layer being of oak- 

 brancla-s, tlien a considerable thick- 

 ness nf Northamptonshire rough flag- 

 stone, and then alternate layers of 

 -ravel with a small layer of clay, 

 which, together, have formed a cement 

 that nothing hut the vigorous appllra- 

 tion of the pick can remove. 



2 The tides in the Wash are about 

 the highest and strongest on the east 

 coast. They rush with great vehe- 

 mence through the harbours of Lynn, 

 AYisheach, and Boston, the resistance 

 caused by their meeting with the 

 ebb-waters being called the Aegar, 

 which rises to its greatest impetuosity 

 during the equinoxes. This word 

 Aegar, or Higre, it may be added, is 

 merely the name of the old North- 

 men's god, applied, like Neptune, to 

 the sea itself. 



