Great Level 81 



incapable of carrying off even the ordinary amount of upland 

 water, which would consequently flow over the land. The ob- 

 struction was twofold ; first, the outfalls became blocked up by 

 the deposits of silt from the sea-waters, which accumulated to an 

 amazing thickness. The well-known instances of boats found, in 

 1635, eight feet below the bed of Wisbech river, and the smith's 

 forge and tools found at Skirbeck Sluice, near Boston, buried 

 with silt 16 feet deep, show what an astonishing quantity of sedi- 

 ment formerly choked up the mouths of the great rivers. Bat 

 the chief hindrance caused by the ocean arose from the tide 

 rushing twice every dav for a very great distance up these chan- 

 nels, driving back the fresh waters, and overflowing with them ; 

 so that the whole level became deluged with deep water, and was 

 in fact one great bay. 



In considering the state of this region as it first attracted the 

 enterprise of man to its improvement, we are to conceive a vast 

 wild morass, Avith only small detached portions of cultivated soil, 

 or islands, raised above the general inundation ; — a most desolate 

 picture, when contrasted with its present state of matchless fer- 

 tility. The first attempt to reclaim the Fens from the dominion 

 of the flood was most probably made by the Romans after the 

 subjugation of the Britons; and many monuments remain of the 

 mighty works they effected, — their banks for repelling the inva- 

 sion of the sea, and their drains for carrying off the Fen waters. 

 One of the most remarkable of their works is the long causey," 

 mentioned by Dugdale, made of gravel, of about 3 feet in 

 thickness and 60 feet broad, (now covered with moor, in some 

 places 3, in others 5 feet thick,) which extends itself from Denver 

 in Norfolk through Grandford, Eldernell, and Eastrea Fen, to 

 Peterborough, 24 miles."* It appears that Holland in Lincoln- 

 shire, containing about 100,000 acres, and Marshland in Nor- 

 folk, of 30,000 acres, were reclaimed from the sea by the Romans. 

 So great was the amount of silt deposited from the tidal waters 

 at the mouth of this great bay, that it increased to such a height 

 as to check the " ordinary flow of the watery element, and got 

 ground," says Dugdale, so fast upon the ocean, that those active 

 and industrious people, the Romans, finding the soil thus raised 

 to be much more rich and fertile than any upland ground, raised 

 stronor banks of earth on that side towards the ocean, to defend it 



* A cutting that was made across this road at Eldernell shows the 

 permanent manner in which the Romans did their work ; it is laid upon 

 the Moor, the first layer upon it being oak branches, then a considerable 

 thickness of the Northamptonshire rough flag-stone, and then alternate 

 layers of gravel with a small layer of clay ; which, together, have formed 

 a cement "that nothing but the unwearied application of the pick can 

 remove. 



VOL. VIII. 



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