The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-27 00:00:00

THE LATE INUNDATIONS AT SHEFFIELD.

The cause of the giving way of the embankment
of the Bradfield reservoir' near Sheffield, by which 238 lives
were lost, and 400,000/. worth of property destroyed, in
Match last, has been keenly speculated upon by engineers.
The Waterworks company consulted several of the most
eminent hydraulic and other engineers of the day, and
the report of those gentlemen was issued to the share-
holders on Friday morning. The document isprefaced
by a correspondence with the Home office, in regard to the
resumption of work on the Agden reservoir, which was
stopped by the directors immediately after the accident at
Bradfiehi. It may be interesting to state that Mr. Rawlin-
' sot (government inspector) stated at the inquest that the
substance of that bank was se " porous as a sieve." He
attributed the failure of the Bradfield beak to a fracture
or dislocation of the pipes, which are embedded in the solid
earth beneath the base of the bank. Is his reply to a letter
from the directors, after they had received the report of the
engineers, Sir George Grey Bays:—" I am to acquaint you,
in reply, that as Sir George Grey understands the works
at An to be now precisely in the same state as when they
were inspected in March last by Mr. Rawlinson, and
as his report of the result of his inspection of these
works is in the possession of the directors, together
with the report of Messrs. Itawlinson and Beardmore
on the bunting of the Bradfield reservoir embank-
ment, and a oopy of the evidence given at the inquest held
at Sheffield, Sir George Grey does not see what additional
information could be obtained by a further investigation
made at the instance of the government. The directors,
with this information in their possession, having now de-
cided, as you inform Sr George Grey, that they are justified
in proceeding with the Agden embankment, Sir George
Grey can only remind them that he has no power to inter-
fere with their decision ; and that if the works are pro-
oeeded with it must be upon the uodirided responsibility
of the company, and without any sanction expressed or im-
plied on the part of her Majesty's government."
In their report to the shareholders the 6 ' ra (Messrs.
Simpson, Hawkaley, Bateman, Fowler, and ) enter
at some length into the circumstances attending the con-
struction of the Bradfield reservoir, and conclude as fol-
lows :—" The filling of the reservoir commenced in duos,
1863, on the occasion of a heavy flood, and from that time,
with some istermissions, the reservoir gradually increased
in depth, and at the time of the accident, on the I Ith
March, 1,464, it had attained to a height which was within
three inches of the top of the weir. During the whole of
this period no imperfection of any kind had been perceived,
the embankment and the reservoir being absolutely water-
tight ; for although a small spring of ochreous water issued
from a shale bed in the escarpment on the south side of the
river below the bank, yet this equally appeared whether
the reservoir was full or empty, and wee, therefore, fed
from other sources. Moreover, this water still continues to
lame, although the reservoir has been emptied of its coa-
ted& for many mouths. There was no fracture of the
pipes, nor any creep of water along the outside of them. The
erubsakment was composed of materials which would not
have slipped if the base on which it rested had been im-
movable. We must, therefore, look for causes other than
supposed imperfections in the quality of the materials or
workmanship for the failure of the reservoir. The weather
during the fortnight previous to the accident had been
exceedingly wet, the rain so swelling the rivers as to inun-
date all the low country in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
It is is such sewer that masses of earth, commonly
called 'landslips,' become saturated with water or lubri-
cated es their bases, and although at other periods compara-
tively or altogether stable, now begin to move. That the
ground outside the embankment has moved is evident, not
only from the tears and fractures which are to be observed
is the lower part of the mass, but also from the significant
fact that one cottage situated high on the bill, and another
nearer to the foot, and both remote from the bank, give
unmistakeable proofs of the recent movement of the ground
on which they stand. From the testimony of the occupiers
of these cottages this movement must have immediately
preceded or been concurrent with the bunting of the re-
servoir. After a full consideration of these and
other collateral circumstances we are unanimously
of opioion that the accident was occasioned
by a landslip which occurred in the ground immediately
on the east side of the embankment, and which extended
benesth a portion of Its outer slope, involving in its con-
sequences the ruin of that portion of the bank and pro-
ducing the catastrophe which followed. To this con-
clusion we seserally came on our first examination, and
every subsequent investigation, and the more iotimate
acquaintance we have since acquired with all the evi-
dence and facts connected with the subject, have only
the more firmly convinced us that to no other cause can
the destruction of the reservoir be rightly attributed.
We are, moreover, of opinion that all the arrangements
made by your engineers were such as might have been
reasonably expected to have proved sufficient for the pur-
poses for which they were intended, and that, if the ground
beneath the bank had tot moved, this work would have
been as aide and as perfect as the other five or six large
reservoirs of the company, which have been constructed in
• similar manner, and which have so long supplied the town
of Sheffield and the rivers Rival'', Lesley, and Don with
water. With regard to the propriety of repairing the
broken embankment, or of abandoning it and forming
another elsewhere, we an not in • condition to report fully
on this question."

WEATHER REPORT.-(THIS DAY.)

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R. S.