Farminrj of Lincolnshire. 



291 



between embanked fens, and is augmented by numerous high- 

 land streams, "delphs and skerths,'' on each side; those on the 

 west flowing between h)fty banks, and entering the river at riirht 

 angles to its course. It is thus fed bv the waters from 94,000 

 acres more. The floods from about 12^000 acres, falling by 

 numerous becks down the declivities above Wildmore, West and 

 East Fens, enter the Witham at and below Boston. 3Jany 

 streams pour dovv-n upon the peat fens from the hills south oi 

 Sleaford, and are carried off by the South Forty-feet Drain. I'his 

 large main drain runs parallel with the high lands, at almost 

 2 or 3 miles distance from the Glen river bank to near Swines- 

 head, north of which place it turns directly eastward to Boston, 

 receiving on its way the drainage of Holland Fen. xA^bout 

 108,000 acres of high lands drain into this canal. The total 

 quaniity of high lands discharging their drain- water by the 

 AVitham Haven is therefore about 550,000 acres; and there are 

 also about 14S,000 acres of low lands discharging by the same 

 outfall. 



The river Welland, from the midland counties, enters Lincoln- 

 shire at Stamford, and traverses a low^ plain to Deepino: and the 

 neighbourhood of Crowland, when it turns northward to Spalding. 

 Receiving the river Glen and several fen-drains, a fevr mi.es 

 below this town it empties into the sea by Fosdike Wash. The 

 Welland flows 24 miles over the fen district, from Deepins" to its 

 outfall. 



The river Glen has tw® sources between Grantham and Folk- 

 ingham, which, running through parallel valleys in the oolite hills, 

 unite and enter upon the fens near Easton. It brings down the 

 floods from a district of about 54,000 acres, and is carried 

 19 miles across the flat country, between embankments. In addi- 

 tion to the upland waters from Rutland and Northamptonshire, 

 &c., about 54,000 acres of high ground in this county, therefore, 

 and also about 64,000 acres of fen and marsh, drain by the Wel- 

 land estuary. 



The elland and Witham outfalls are, in fact, only one ; for 

 the two channels unite am.ong the Wash srtnds at a point not 

 more than 2 miles distant from the shore. Thus, out of the 

 whole district of 362,000 acres (alluvial laud), about 212,000 

 acres evacuate at one outfall. And besides this, all the waters 

 which descend upon this level from the uplands, viz., the drain- 

 age of about 604,000 acres (together with the Welland floods 

 from other counties) are discharged by these rivers ; so that about 

 816,000 acres, or very nearly half the county^ empty their down- 

 fall water at the same point of the Wash. So sluggish are the 

 fen streams that it is only by such a combination of weight and 

 current that the ebb-tide and freshes can srind out the bars of 



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