and the Storage of Water. 
35 
fall channels for brooks and water-courses, and without which 
all other works must prove abortive, is beyond the scope of this 
article, the works being of so comprehensive a character, as only 
to be dealt with by a properly constituted Conservancy Board 
under the guidance of a qualified engineer. There are, how- 
ever, many small streams and outfall drainages which discharge 
into estuaries or on the sea coast, the improvement of which 
is essential for the proper maintenance of the system of drainage 
to which they afford an outlet. These streams often have to 
find their way to the main channel through a long foreshore 
of alluvial deposit, and are diverted from their course and im- 
peded in their flow by the action of the tides' and by the de- 
posits washed into them. They are generally so wide and 
shallow that the outflowing water has not sufficient power to 
maintain a free course. The remedy is to concentrate the whole 
force of the outflowing stream in a narrow and deep channel. 
This is sometimes done with stakes and boarding, or by stones 
and clay. The Dutch and American engineers use faggots and 
brushwood made into " mattrasses," secured in their places by 
piles, and sunk by being weighted with stones ; and by this means 
they train and regulate currents of very considerable velocity.* 
A very effective yet simple and economical plan has been adopted 
in training the Fen rivers discharging into the Wash, and is 
equally applicable to creeks and small outfalls. The training 
walls are constructed of faggots or fascines, made of thorns cut 
from the hedges, bedded in clay. The fascines are about 6 feet 
in length, including the long legs or projecting branches, and 3 
feet in girth, the butt-ends of the thorns being all placed one 
way and tied together with tarred string. They are placed 
along the side of the intended channel in a single or any greater 
number of rows, according to the depth and force of the current 
to be dealt with, and covered with a layer of about 6 inches of 
clay, the process being repeated, layer after layer, until the surface 
of the foreshore is reached, the usaal height in the large rivers 
being half-tide level. If properly laid, training walls thus con- 
structed may be placed in a channel with 20 feet in depth at 
low-water, and will resist the force of both ebb and flood-tides, 
and form a permanent and lasting barrier where stone would 
be washed away. The cost of this work is about \s. Sd. per 
cubic yard. A full description of this process, in connection 
with the training of the outfall of tidal rivers and the reclama- 
tion of the foreshore, will be found in the ' Transactions of the 
Institution of Civil Engineers.'! 
• " Use of Fascines in Holland," ' Trans. Instit. Civil Engineers, vol. sli. 
t Wheeler on ' Fascine Work and Reclamation,' vnl. xlvi. 
D 2 
