Modem Drainage Problems 199 



16 syphons, each 3 ft. in diameter. This arrangement lasted until 1880, 

 when a new sluice was erected to take the place of the syphons; the total 

 cost of this disaster, and the improvement of 1880, amounted to ^250,000. 

 By 1912, low water in the Ouse was not as low as it had been in 1880, 

 due to a general deterioration of the river and its outfall into the Wash. 

 In the meantime, the old scoop-wheels had been replaced by modem 

 pumps so that the water had to be got away more quickly. The floods of 

 1916, 1923, and 1926 confirmed the Middle Level Board in its opinion 

 that the position in time of heavy flood was becoming more dangerous. In 

 1923, Major R. G. Clark, as Engineer to the Commissioners, recommended 

 the installation of iinproved sluices; but by 1928 it was decided to install 

 a pumping station at St Germans, and this, after due negotiation, was 

 completed in 1934. The new sluice has only two sluice gates each 35 ft. in 

 width, thus securing 50 per cent greater width for discharge than in 1880. 

 These sluices are assisted by three pumping units, and provision has been 

 made for the installation of a fourth. The pumping plant was erected by 

 the Premier Gas Engine Co. ; each unit consists of a horizontal eight- 

 cyhnder Diesel engine developing 1000 h.p. driving a Gwynne centrifugal 

 pump 8 ft. 6 in. in diameter, capable of discharging up to 1000 tons per 

 minute at low heads or 840 tons per minute against a static head of 10 ft. 



THE SOUTH LEVEL 



The problems of the Middle Level, intricate as they are, are very much 

 simpler than those of the South Level. Those of the Middle Level are 

 concerned mainly with the rainfall that falls on its own area, while the 

 South Level has to arrange for the drainage of nearly one-half of the 

 catchment basin of the Ouse. 



Before the institution of the Ouse Drainage Board, the maintenance of 

 banks was the responsibility of the Internal District Commissioners. 

 During high floods, the better drained and richer areas were fairly well 

 protected, because they had been able to maintain their banks in a satis- 

 factory condition; but Internal Districts, whose financial position was not 

 so strong, were liable to breaches in the banks. Some districts were flooded 

 at frequent intervals; Hockwold Fen, for example, was drowned in 1912, 

 1915, and again in 1916. In 1919, three breaches occurred in the River 

 Cam, and in 1928 there was a serious breach in the right bank of the River 

 Wissey, when some 2000 acres were flooded. It was about this date that 

 the Ouse Drainage Board received a grant of ^{^276,000 from the Ministry 

 of Agriculture to enable it to carry out extensive dredging and einbanking 

 throughout the South Level. 



