292 On the Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnshire. 
leaving a profit of 1,600,000/. to the proprietors. It was in this 
work that Mr. Ronnie established the principle of separating the 
downfall from the upland waters, which may be thus explained. 
The whole district is so nearly on a level with the sea, that when 
the tide is up, there is not fall enough in the drains, or, as I would 
rather term them, canals, to carry the water seawards : hence their 
mouths are furnished with gates, which, opening from within, 
allow the drainage water to ])ass when the sea is low, but are 
closed by the rising tide. Mr. Rennie, however, observed that 
these fens were drowned not only by the rain which fell upon 
them, but also by the surplus of the rain falling on a large tract 
of higher ground, which flowed down upon them ; and it occurred 
to him that if, by a catchwater drain cut round the base of the 
rising slope along the whole margin of the fen, he could inter- 
cept these upland waters, they might be carried across the fen 
by a separate channel, and having a greater fall would discharge 
themselves in a higher state of the tide ; so that the lowlands being 
henceforth encumbered with their own share of rain only, this doicn- 
fall water would more easily be discharged while their sea-gates 
could be left open. Another recent improvement has been the 
general use of steam, instead of wind, for pumping the water out 
of embanked districts. Justly as Mr. Young had praised what 
had been done in Deeping Fen, this wide tract, while dependent 
on wind for its emersion, was sometimes reduced, we are told, in 
calm weather to a deplorable state. These 30,000 acres, how- 
ever, are now entirely emancipated by two steam-engines — one of 
forty, the other of sixty-horse power — set up at Podes-hole. 
These drive a large water-wheel, which, acting not by but against 
the fall of the water, forces it upwards into the main channel that 
overrides the district, and so this great fen is dried at all seasons. 
A steam-engine, however, cannot always be set up, for while it 
frees its own it of course swells the flood which drowns other 
districts. But another field of improvement has been enteied on, 
which, if carried to its full extent, will render embankment un- 
necessary, and also pumping, whether by wind or by steam, keep- 
ing the rivers always below the level of the adjacent lands — the 
improvement of their outfalls into the sea. All these fen-rivers 
fall into the great bay called the Wash, shallow and full of shift- 
ing mud-banks, through which at low tide they wind their shifting 
course into deep water. At the mouth of the Welland this difii- 
culty will be overcome by carrying the river itself out to sea. 
Here, as Dr. Buckland informs me, no wall is built, but two rows 
of bush-faggots are laid for perhaps 50 yards in advance on the 
mud at low water on each side of the mouth. After a few tides 
these faggot-heaps are found full of a substance called warp, a 
mixture of fine sand and mud, which renders them in some degree 
