30 
Trunk Drainage. 
widen, straighten, deepen, divert, scour, or cleanse any river, 
stream, ditch or drain, brook, pool, or watercourse, side-cut, 
ditcli, or drain, and to alter or remove any bank, sluice, flood- 
gate, clough, hatch, weir^ dam, or other obstruction, and to make 
or erect any liank, sluice, floodgate, hatch, ditch, drain, tunnel, 
or other works necessary or convenient for drainage or lor warp- 
ing, and to dam, bar, and stop up with any weir or dam any 
river or Avatercourse, and to erect and maintain on such land 
steam and other engines and machinery." Land is to be pur- 
chased for the sites of engine-houses and other erections ; and 
all compensations for injury to any lands interfered with may be 
agreed upon in the manner provided by " The Lands Clauses 
Consolidation Act of 1845," (8 and i) Vict., cap. 18). No 
streams supplying ornamental waters are to be meddled with, 
except with the consent of their proprietors. No person is to 
construct under this Act any works on the sea-shore or any 
navigable river, so far up as the tide flows, without the consent 
of the Admiralty, or injure the navigation of any river or canal, 
or occupy land between high and low water-mark, without the 
consent of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Tlie rights 
and powers of Commissioners of Sewers, of Commissioners 
appointed under any Local or Private Drainage Act, and of 
Romney Marsh and the Bedford Level, are to be held inviolate. 
But persons interested in lands authorized to be drained under 
any local or private Act may — by not less than two-thirds of their 
number notifying their desire to the Commissioners — have the 
same drained under the provisions of this Act. 
So far these excellent provisions are comprehensive enough 
to empower any persons interested in a wet valley, meadows 
damaged by a flooding brook, or lands oppressed with water held 
up by an out-of-date canal or antiquated flour-mill, to clear a 
passage for their drainage, ulierever it would be worth the expense 
of works and compensation. And I do not see why this Act 
should not have been already applied in many counties, now that 
the importance of a perfect subsoil drainage warrants the 
expectation of co-operative assistance from lands lying contigu- 
ous to the belts actually deluged.* Such farms ought to con- 
tribute, for the sake of a deeper and speedier discharge of drain- 
water, to the reclamation of the valley-bottoms which are not 
wealthy enough to remove millponds by their sole resources. 
However, when the drainage of a district comes into collision 
with a powerful Canal Company, a series of large Mill interests, 
or a Town Corporation, these are not to be overthrown by the 
* The reason, I apprehend, is that the Act gives no power to make an opposing^ 
minority contributory to the expenses of the works, however much they may be 
benefited by those works. — Ph. Pusey. 
