8 
Trunk Drainage. 
and Pctarborougli, suffeiccl fioni oxlraordinary floods ; and again 
in the summer of 1853. In the latter season, too, the Ouse over- 
flowing swept away many sheep and rendered the hay-crops 
nearly valueless, particularly in the vicinity of Buckingham. 
Manchester, Rochdale, the West Riding of Yorkshire, between 
Goole and Sell^v, and Doncaster, and along tlie banks of the 
chief rivers, Avere localities heavily visited by the floods of those 
years. Further nortli, the valley of the Tyne, the neighbourhood 
of Darlington, the vale of Pickering, and some other districts 
were inundated. 
In the eastern counties again we find the Ouse and Nene 
perioilicdllj/ deluge broad tracts of meadow, and often arable 
land ; the Fen Level often greatly suffering from the breaking of 
its embankments by the excessive hydrostatic pressure of the 
swollen hill freshes. The Essex valleys are in a most de- 
plorable plight. During the summer floods of 1853 immense 
injury was done there to sheep and lurnhs, to liai/ and corn crops. 
The vicinity of Chelmsford was completely deluged, the trees of 
the meadows being tlie only vestiges discernible above the wide 
expanse of water. Many hundreds of acres of hay were destroyed, 
thousands of hay-cocks floating down the rivers — a hundred per 
hour passing through Box-mill floodgate, near Halstead. Tak- 
ing tlie course of tlie river througli the Yeldhams, the Heding- 
hams, and the northern part of Halstead meadows, the aggregate 
amount of grass and hay floating down this one stream must 
have been at least 50 tons. Along the banks of the Stour and 
Colne hundreds of aci'es of meadow were entirely drowned, and 
hundreds of tons of the transported hay lay embedded in the 
river, impeding the current and choking up the numerous mill- 
wheels and floodgates. Great calamities were experienced in 
many other localities : an entire field of flax was floated away 
near Writtle ; and in Baddow Mead Hundreds the damage to the 
wheat crops was estimated at a sack per acre. 
The above enumeration of deluges, and of the localities chiefly 
suffering from them — though we have of course omitted a 
multiplicity of valleys and towns similarly oppressed — will suf- 
fice to show the immediate necessity for strong and active 
measures to secure the property and persons of English subjects 
from the ravage of their ill -managed watercourses ; the equally 
imperious consideration of improved means of healthiness for a 
crowded and clustering population, to say nothing of unchecked 
traffic and intercourse for an increasingly l)usy industry, seems to 
demand an improvement of our national drainage, even should 
the classes occupied in farming and milling not be specially pro- 
fited by the change. My purpose, however, is to show — and this 
chiefly by precedent and example — that the improvement required 
