Jan.. 1889 . 
MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 
15 
It lias been suggested that if the whole of the water-mills 
on the Nen were pulled down, the sacrifice would be slight 
compared with the injury they inflict on the lands of the 
Nen Valley. This seems to assume that floods need not 
occur if mills were absent, an assumption not very justifiable, 
particularly if the river were maintained in a navigable 
condition. It seems to me that it would be a very retrograde 
step to do away with the mills, and cease to use the power of 
the river, particularly as the evils usually attributed to them 
can be remedied without such a drastic method. 
Mills in some respects are an absolute advantage, for they 
help to keep back and conserve the water of rivers for the 
dry season of summer, which otherwise would be lost. 
Bridges are answerable for part of the evil arising from 
floods. Some of the ancient bridges are inadequate to 
discharge the water wishing to pass through them, and the 
water may be at times a foot higher on one side than the 
other. This mav be the result of faultv construction, or the 
blocking up of side arches through neglect. One of the most 
prominent instances of faulty construction was the old bridge 
at Wisbeacli. This had a sectional area less than half that of 
Peterborough bridge, being only 796 square feet as compared 
with 1,856 square feet. The present bridge at Wisbeacli has 
an area of 2,500 square feet. 
A number of minor causes tend either to increase the 
amount of water reaching the valleys, or to bring it down 
more rapidly; such as improved systems of village drainage , 
and diminution of woodlands; also some of the improvements 
made by riparian proprietors to protect their own lands add 
to the flooding of others, both by bringing the water more rapidly 
to the area below not improved, and by diminishing the Jiood 
capacity of the valley. 
The embanking of a river may even add to floods, for 
embanking the sides will usually lead to a raising of the bed, 
and so the water in all the streams feeding it will be kept 
higher, and the more easily be made to overflow. The same 
embanking, too, tends to prevent the discharge of floods into 
the river. 
Remedies for Floods.— Several of the proposed remedies 
for floods have already been considered, because intimately 
associated with the causes, but one or two others remain to 
be considered. 
Washes of the Nen. —Perhaps the most effective way of 
dealing with flood water, if the object is simply to diminish 
injury in a particular district, is that adopted in connection 
