368 
Drainage of the Upper Thames Valley. 
150 yards from the river, almost as far as Ejnsham Bridge, 
a distance of about 5 miles and a quarter. The works, although 
called "an embankment" generally and throughout this paper, 
really consist of an embankment and cutting, the latter being 
the farther away from the river, and varying from 17 feet 6 inches 
in width at the top, in its widest place, to 14 feet in its narrowest, 
and from 5 feet 2 inches in depth in its deepest part to 4 feet 
3 inches in the shallowest. The embankment also varies in 
height and width at the base, its greatest height being 5 feet, 
and its lowest 1 foot 9 inches, and the widest part of its base 
being 25 feet and the narrowest 8 feet. 
The following cut represents a section of the works ; the 
figures in it show the actual dimensions of the embankment 
and cutting respectively at a particular point. 
Section of the EmbanJment and Cutting, 
The whole range of the country through which the embankment 
passes is very low indeed ; on the Oxfordshire side there is no hill, 
or even rising ground, through the whole of this district less than a 
mile from the river ; but on the Berkshire side there are places 
where the hills, on which are situate the villages of Cunnor, 
Eaton, and Besselsleigh, run down to within a very short distance 
of the river's bed. From this it will be easily perceived that the 
Oxfordshire side of the river was more subject to the floods, not 
only than the opposite side of the stream, but also than it would 
have been had the land on both sides of the river been equally 
level. So vexatious, indeed, were the floods over a part of this 
tract, and to such an extent were the farmers damaged thereby, 
that some years ago some of them, under the direction and 
guidance of Mr. Lord, of Stanton Harcourt, the largest tenant 
farmer in the district, carried out an embankment and cutting 
at a longer distance from the river than the one the subject of 
this paper, along some part of the same tract of country as is 
embraced by the embankment now under description. This 
small embankment was so great a success, and the country which 
was protected by it from being flooded so greatly increased in 
value, that, as soon as an opportunity occurred, the occupiers 
of the land contiguous to the river, who are chiefly tenants of the 
Rev. W. V. Harcourt, of Nuneham Park, near Oxford, bestirred 
themselves to have an embankment and cutting, similar to the 
