318 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



to occasional inundations of the Humber, and the barrier- banks 

 are attacked by the tides in a peculiar manner. I'he sea-banks 

 along the whole Lincolnshire coast, and the long lines of em- 

 bankment which restrain the fen rivers, are subject to the wear- 

 ing action of the waves and the pressure of water ; but in a 

 modified degree. The Wash rivers bring; the drainage from 

 above 5000 square miles of country, extending into Leicester- 

 shire, Buckinghamshire, and Suffolk, and issue into the centre 

 of a broad bay, these floods Vvith the sea-water being warded off 

 from the land by immense flats of sand. Thus the shore at low 

 water presents a beach from *2 to 3 miles in width, and it is only 

 at high tide that the banks are subjected to the power of the 

 waters ; if, therefore, they are of proper strength and dimensions 

 little danger is to be apprehended. So along the chief part of 

 the coast washed by the open sea, the banks are protected by- 

 wide foreshores of sand and marsh ; but vvith the embankments 

 on the Humber the case is very different. The H umber rivers 

 radiate to Westmoreland, Staffordshire, and Leicestershire, drain- 

 ing a much greater expanse of country than that drained by the 

 Wash, and discharge through a winding estuary rather than into 

 a bay. The sands, instead of fringing the marshes, have been 

 precipitated by the muddy Vvaters in the middle of the Humber, 

 forming the great banks or shoals named Whitton Sand, Old 

 Warp, Skitter Sand, &c., and the water dividing flows by two 

 deep channels between them and the land on each side. The 

 Ancholme marshes are situated just at a bend of the estuary, 

 opposite to a projecting point of the Yorkshire coast, which 

 serves as a jetty to direct the full force of the current against the 

 banks. The channel being so near to the banks, the effect of the 

 scour upon them is very great ; and, besides this, the tides flow 

 in at the rate of about 8 miles per hour, and as a velocity of 2 

 miles per hour is sufficient to transport along the bottom of a 

 river stones the size of an egg, the eroding power of this cur- 

 rent may be readily conceived. This scour, together with the 

 beating of the waves, eats away and undermines the soft warp 

 soil upon which the embankments stand; and when the water 

 has encroached to the foot of the bank it becomes of little con- 

 sequence what is the size and strength of the mound, for the 

 land settles, the tides overtop the bank, and breeches and flood- 

 ing occur. It is only by strict attention to repairs outside the 

 embankments that large encroachments of the Humber can be 

 avoided : where this is neglected, the banks are gradually de- 

 stroyed, and the new ones that are erected have to be fixed back- 

 warder on the land. 



Along the east bank of the river Trent is a breadth of land 

 several feet lower than the water in the river at high-tide, and 



