On  River  Conservancy,  Sfc.,  and  Prevention  of  Floods.  389 
To  give  any  estimate  of  the  actual  loss  incurred  would  be 
impossible,  but  an  idea  of  its  magnitude  may  be  gathered  from 
examples  where  the  amount  has  been  to  some  extent  ascertained. 
Mr.  Brundell,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  stated  that  the  estimated  damage  of  a flood 
which  occurred  in  Yorkshire,  in  July  1872,  to  one  district 
situated  on  the  River  Don,  amounted  to  70,000/.  ; and  that, 
in  other  districts  on  the  same  river,  it  could  not  be  put  at  less 
than  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds..  Mr.  Tarbotton  stated 
that,  by  the  flood  in  the  Trent,  which  occurred  in  July  1875, 
thousands  of  acres  of  crops  were  destroyed,  a large  number  of 
cattle  endangered,  and  immense  damage  done  by  the  houses 
and  factories  of  the  lower  part  of  Nottingham  being  flooded. 
The  damage  was  so  great  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  place  a 
money  value  on  it.  These  floods  on  the  Trent  are  frequent, 
and  the  towns  of  Leicester  and  Burton-on-Trent  are  also 
subject  to  inundations  from  the  same  river.  Isolated  attempts  at 
self-protection  in  these  places  has  only  rendered  the  flooding  at 
other  points  worse.  In  the  basin  of  the  Aire  and  Calder,  by  a 
flood  in  October  1866,  the  whole  river-valley  was  inundated, 
several  people  and  cattle  were  drowned,  crops  were  destroyed, 
and  some  portions  of  the  towns  of  Leeds,  W akefield,  Huddersfield, 
Barnsley,  and  Dewsbury  flooded  to  a depth  of  from  six  to  eight 
feet,  the  estimated  damage  amounting  to  nearly  a million  of 
money. 
In  the  West  of  England  the  floods  in  Somersetshire  on  the 
Parrott  are  notorious.  On  the  W ye  and  the  Lug,  in  Hereford- 
shire, Mr.  Lloyd  stated  to  the  Committee  that  the  roads  were 
sometimes  blocked  up  by  the  water  for  nine  weeks  together : 
that  for  miles  the  basin  of  the  valley  is  nothing  but  a sea  of 
water,  the  area  of  land  thus  affected  not  being  less  than  8000 
acres.  In  July  1875,  a summer  flood  washed  all  the  hav- 
crops  away  from  the  meadows  lying  along  the  river,  besides 
other  various  damage. 
In  the  East  of  England,  along  the  four  rivers  emptying  into 
the  Wash,  the  flooding  is  frequent  and  constant.  A short  con- 
tinuance of  rain  places  the  wrho!e  valley  of  the  Ouse  from  Bedford 
to  Earith  under  water,  the  floods  rising  above  the  top  of  the 
hedges,  and  stopping  all  communication  by  road.  In  the  Nene 
the  same  flooding  occurs  from  Northampton  to  Peterborough. 
On  the  Welland  scarcely  a season  passes  without  most  disastrous 
inundations.  In  1880,  no  less  than  four  floods  occurred, 
namely,  in  July,  September,  and  October.  The  whole  of  the 
hay-crops  were  floated  away  from  the  meadows  along  the  river  ; 
several  villages  were  flooded,  the  water  rising  in  the  streets  to  a 
depth  of  from  three  to  four  feet,  and  inundating  the  houses  ; the 
