DRAINAGE OF TITK GKEAT LEVEL. 



PART 1. 



of the world, except in Holland, have more industry 

 and skill been displayed in reclaiming and preserving 

 the soil, than in Lincolnshire and the districts of the 

 Great Bedford Level. Six hundred and eighty thou- 

 sand acres of the most fertile land in England, or an 

 area equal to that of North and South Holland, have 

 been converted from a dreary waste into a fruitful plain, 

 and fleets of vessels traverse the district itself, freighted 

 with its rich produce. Taking its average annual value 

 at 4:1. an acre, the addition to the national wealth and 

 resources may be readily calculated. 



The prophecies of the decay that would fall upon 

 the country, if "the valuable race of Fenmen" were 

 deprived of their pools for pike, and fish, and wild-fowl, 

 have long since been exploded. The population has 

 grown in numbers, in health, and in comfort, with the 

 progress of drainage and reclamation. The Fens are 

 no longer the lurking places of disease, 1 but as salubrious 

 as any other parts of England. Dreary swamps are 

 supplanted by pleasant pastures, and the haunts of pike 

 and wild-fowl have become the habitations of industrious 

 farmers and husbandmen. Even Whittlesea Mere and 

 Eamsey Mere, the only two lakes, as we were told in 

 the geography books of our younger days, to be found 

 in the south of England, have been blotted out of 

 the map, for they have been drained by the engineer, 

 and are now covered with smiling farms and pleasant 

 homesteads. 



1 It is stated in a recent report of 

 the Registrar-General that, whilst the 

 mortality of Pan in the Pyrenees, a 



place resorted to by IJritish invalids 

 on account of its salnlinoiisiKss, is 23 

 in 1000, that of Ely is only 17 in 1000. 



