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

The Late Inundations at Sheffield.

consideration of these and other collateral circum

stances we are unanimously of opinion that the acci-
dent was occasioned by a landslip which occurred
in the ground immediately on the east side of the
embankment, and extended beneath a portion of its
outer slope, involving in its consequences the ruin
of that portion of the bank and producing the catas-
trophe which followed. To this conclusion we
severally came on our first examination, and every
subsequent investigation, and the more intimate
acquaintance we have since acquired with all the
evidence and facts connected with the subject, have
only the more firmly convinced us that to no other
c AWE) 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 purposes for which they
were intended, and that if the ground beneath the
bank h2d not moved, this work would have been as

safe and as perfect as the other five or six large re-

servoira of the company, which have been con.

strutted in a similar manner, and which have so
long supplied the town of Sheffield and the rivers

Kivelin, Loxley, and Don witli water. With regard

o the propriety of repairing the broken embank-

went, or of abandoning it and forming another

elsewhere, we are not in a condition to report fully
on this q iestiou.l

THE VOLUNTEERS,

Yesterday morning the members of the Queen's
Westminster Rifl?s paraded at half-past 11 o'clock
at the Duke of York'i Column, St. James's Park,
and after blank ammunition had been served out
proceeded, accompanied by the bands of the regi-
ment, to Hampstead, where the corps was pat
through the movements of a field-day, in the pre-
sence of a large number of spectators. The annual
distribution of prizes will take place in Westminster
Hall on Saturday week. It is believed, but not yet
positively known, that Lady Vonstance Grosvenor,
the wife of Earl Grosvenor, colonel of the regiment,

will, as usual, perform the ceremony.
This evening the Lord Mayor will preside at a
dinner of the Hampstead Rifles, at the Assembly
Rooms, when he will present the prizes won during
the year to the successful shots.
The prize meeting of the 6th Company of the St.
George Rifles, which has been delayed by unavoid-
able causes up till now, has just been held at the
ranges on Wormwood Scrubs. The interest of the
meeting was marred by the unfavourable state of
atmosphere, a dense fog occasionally rendering it
difficult to distinguish the outline of the targets at
100 yards. Under these circumstances, Capt. Wim-
penis resolved to limit the competition to third class
ranges. The first series of prizes, open to all effi-
cient members of tho company, was disposed of at
300, 200, and 150 yards, five rounds at each range;
the distance being reduced as the light failed, as
follows :—Priza 1, Ensign Stewart, 44 marks; 2,
Ensign Crooks, 43; 3, Private Torr, 43; 4, Private
S. Lesdbetter, 43; 5, Sergeant-Instractor of Mus-
ketry Lintott, 42; 6, Private Leah, 41; 7, Private
W. Leadbetter, 40; 8, Sergeant Campbell, 37; 9,
Private Cutler, 37; 10, Private White, 34; 11, Pri•
vate Donald, 33 ; 12, Private W. Smith, 32. The
second series, consisting of eight consolation prizes,
open to all who had failed to secure a prize in the
first, was then competed for, et 159 and 100 yards,
with the following results:-1, Private Thurst ; 2,
Private Weekes ; 3, Private L. Jones; 4, Captain
Wimperis; 5, Private Thorpe; 6, Sergeant W. J.
Pearnaan ;7, Private J. Parsons. The prizes will
be presented to the winners on the occasion of the
annual supper of the company, which will take
place early in the coming year.

During the present month the members of the
Victoria Rifles have shot off several matches. The
first match was between ten members of No.l Com.
pang and ten members of the 2d Inland Revenue
Company of the Civil Service Corps. The ranges
were 200, 600, and 600 yards, five shots at each
range, Wimbledon 1864 targets and marking. The
match resulted in favour of the Victories by 27
marks, they having scored 305 marks to 278 made

The cause of the giving way of the embankment
of the Bradford reservoir, near Sheffield, by which
238 lives were lost, and £400,000 worth of property
destroyed, in March 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 shareholders on Friday
morning. The document is prefaced bf a corress
pondence 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 Bradfield. It may be interesting to state
that Mr. Rawlinson (government inspector) stated
at the inquest that the substance of that bank was
as" porous as a sieve." He attributed the failure
of the Bradford bank to a fracture or dislocation of
the pipes, which are embedded in the solid earth
beneath the Lase of the bank. In his reply to a
letter from the directors, after they had received the
report of the engineers, Sir George Grey says:--
.' I am to acquaint you, in reply, that as Sir George
Grey understands the works at Agden to be now
precisely in the same state as when they were ins
specte,d in March last by Mr. Rawlinson, and as
hie report of the result of his inspection of these
works is in the possession of the directors, to-
gether with the report of Messrs. Rawlinson and
Beardmore on the bursting of the Bradford re-
servoir embankment, and a espy 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 decided, as you infer Sir George Grey,
that they are justified in proceeding with .the
Agden embankment, Sir George Grey can only re•
mind them that he has no power to interfere with
their decision; and that if the works are proceeded
with it must be upon the undivided responsibility
of the company, and without any sanction expressed
or implied on the part of her Majesty's Govern-
ment."
In their report to the shareholders the engineers
(Messrs Simpson, Hawksley, Bateman, Fowler, and
Harrison)"enter at some length into the circum•
stances attending the construction of the Bradfield
reservoir, and conclude as follows :—" The filling of
the reservoir commenced in June, 1863, on the occa-
sion of a heavy flood, and from that time, with some
intermissions, the reservoir gradually increased in
depth, and at the time of the accident, on the 11th
March, 1864, 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
b,24:1 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 was
therefore fed from other sources. Moreover, this
water still continues to issue, although the reservoir
has been emptied of its contents for many months.
There was no fracture of the pipes, nor any creep
of water along the outside of them. The embank-
ment was composed of materials which would not
have slipped if the base on which it rested had been
immovable. 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 previs
ous to the accident had been exceedingly wet, the
rain so swelling the rivers as to inundate all the low
country in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is in
such seasons that masses of earth, commonly called
landslips, become saturated with water or fabricated
on their bases, and although at other periods com-
paratively 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 in the lower part of the
mass, but also from the significant fact that one cot-
tage situated high on the hill, and another nearer
to the foot, and both remote from the bank, give
unmistakable 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 burning of the reservoir. After a ful