519 
a year; a bridge and embankment have been substituted for a long 
and dangerous shallew ford between Norfolk and Lincolnshire ; 
and 1500 aeres of the old estuary have already. been recovered from 
the sea, whilst more is in progress of recovery. A further collateral 
advantage has attended this work, from connecting with ita portion 
of the great Bedford level, imperfectly drained by His Grace’s an- 
cestors ; so that a district called the Worth Level, containing 50,000 
acres, and adjacent districts, amounting altogether to 60,000 acres, 
has now a perfect drainage in the wettest seasons through the new 
channel of the Nene, and has become one of the most fertile and 
prosperous agricultural districts in England, in which agues and 
marsh fevers exist no more. 
The general level of these fens being about midway between 
high- and low-water mark, the drainage is accomplished by self- 
acting sluices, which open to let out the water during the ebb, and 
are shut by the pressure of the rising tide. Under the preceding 
imperfect drainage the fens depended chiefly on the tedious and 
uncertain action of windmills for lifting the water above the im- 
pediments that obstructed its passage to the sea. Of this great 
work ‘of national improvement the late Duke of Bedford was the 
mainspring and chief conductor; the large extent of his Grace’s 
property in the district naturally gave him the greatest interest in 
its suecess, and threw the chief direction of the measure upon his 
hands; and the generosity and perseverance with which he deyoted 
himself to the superintendence of it inspired a general confidence 
throughout .all the parties engaged with him in this costly and 
- arduous undertaking. 
I learn from Sir John Rennie’s report and estimates on the im- 
provement of the navigation of the river Nene, and for the more 
efficient drainage of Moreton’s Leam Wash and Whittlesea Mere ; 
and from a pamphlet lately published (1840) by Mr. Tycho Wing 
on the navigation of the Nene, that a further grand work of dram- 
age is in contemplation under the auspices of the present Duke of 
Bedford and Earl Fitzwilliam, for draining, by means of the Nene 
outfall, Whittlesea Mere and a large district of contiguous fens, at 
a cost of £360,000, with a proposed benefit of recovering 5000 
acres from their present condition of shallow lakes and morasses, and 
of giving a perfect drainage to 50,000 acres besides those now. 0c- 
eupied by these lakes *. 
Many and honourable are the wreaths that intertwine to form 
the civic crown of John late Duke of Bedford, the just reward 
of his various and unceasing labours to advance the useful and or- 
namental arts of peace, and ameliorate the condition of his country ; 
* We may form some estimate ‘of the public as well as private benefits 
resulting from operations of this kind, from the case of a tract of fen im the 
Isle of Ely, called Padsols, of which, in the year 1800, 800 acres were sold 
for 800s.; in 1816 part of this fen was let for 2s. 6d. an acre; in 1832, 
when the drainage was nearly completed, it was let for 10s., and is now 
let for 40s: an acre. The rent of this whole district has increased seven- 
fold since 1830. 
2U2 
