THE BASIN OF THE SEVERN AND THE BEISTOL CHANNEL. 



99 



feet. The Severn estuary presents the aspect of a river only at low water, 

 when in some places it is no more than from 700 to 900 feet wide. Sand- 

 banks and ledges of rock then make their appearance above the water, and 

 vessels which fail to take advantage of the rising tide to reach their port of desti- 

 nation are obliged to cast anchor in some favourable spot, until the next tide 

 enables them to proceed on their voyage. At low water the Lower Severn is 

 scarcely navigable, and even the mouths of the "VVye and Avon are sometimes 

 inaccessible. As to the fishing- smacks, they allow the retiring tide to leave them 



Fig. 54. — Bristol Channel. 

 From an Admiral tr Chart. 



13 M 



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23 ,(, 10 





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 > Payvlett 



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high and dry upon a sand-bank. From afar the fishermen see the shining crest of 

 the approaching tidal wave ; soon the river is arrested in its flow and turned back 

 upon itself ; the sand-bank grows less and less ; the waves approach the sides of 

 the vessel ; they burrow in the sand in which its keel is embedded, and gradually 

 uplift it. The steersman once more grasps the helm, and he finds himself afloat, 

 where but a few minutes before there extended a mere waste of sand. In the upj)er 

 and narrower part of the estuary, where the interval between low and high Avater 

 is very short, the advancing tide- wave rushes suddenly up, and forms a dangerous 

 bore. At spring tides this bore is felt as high up as Gloucester, and owing to its 



