The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-08 00:00:00

lIIE SECOND MARSHLAND INUNDATION

KING'S LYNN, TUESDAY.
Very little work at the dams was accomplished
yesterday, the time being occupied almost solely in
preparations and accumulating material. Hun-
dreds of navvies were all yesterday and to-day
occupied in heightening the banks from the sluice
up to the point where the first dam is to be made;
but though a great mass of earth has been thrown
up it is not puddled, and wants solidity to resist
the pressure of the tide, In many places the
" cradges" thus made have been swept clean away
at high water.

It has been already stated that the sluice bank
gave way on Sunday evening, without more than
ten minutes warning. This is true, but in a limited
sense_ Our reporter has just ascertained that four
or five months ago, when the sluice was being
strengthened by piling and the deposit of clunch
on the outer face, the divers at that time employed
on the Middle Level dam examined the founda-
tions of the sluice, and reported through Messrs.
Smith and Leather, the contractors at the datia,
that there was a hole of six feet width
in the bank next the wing wall at the very spot
where it has now given way. Messrs.
Smith and
Leather then recommended that a dam should be
immediately struck across the mouth of the drain,
and the sluice and banks thoroughly examined and
repaired from the foundations upward. This was
not done, although it is to be presumed that efforts
were made to stop the hole.
It is hardly possible to describe the alarm and
depression occasioned throughout the district by
the state of affairs this morning. The day opened
on a heavy rain, which has continued all day, ac-
companied by a gale from the north-west—the most
adverse combination possible. The tide of this
morning was consequently full four feet higher
than that of last night ; and this evening (about
seven o'clock) it will be still higher unless the wind
abates. The sea water rushing through the breach
rapidly filled the drain and poured over its banks,
wherever the cradging had been ineffectual, into
the Marshland sewer, and over the further bank of
this on to the lands of Mr. Peek and others, filling
the stack-yards and coming close to the houses
themselves. Making its way rapidly up the two
main arteries it filled the internal drains and caused
them to overflow on either hand. The scene is now
exactly similar to that of May last, but so much the
worse as Marshland itself is now invaded, as well
as the Smeeth and Fen. The flood is spreading
across in the direction of Tilney Buck (three miles
in a direct line from the outfall), and Mr. Robert
Bird, Mr. Batterham, and other extensive farmers
in that neighbourhood have significant warnings of
the necessity of removing not only their corn and
stock, but also themselves, their families, and house-
hold goods. On the other side of the drains in the
Fenlands the case is precisely similar, but of course
aggravated by the low level of the soil. The flood
is making its way close up to the Lynn and Wis-
bech Railroad, and there is every prospect of
this being again submerged, and the traffic
stopped. Some attempts have been made to check
the flood by closing the sluices in the various
smaller drains, but in few cases is this likely to be
successful, and it endangers the stability of the
sluices themselves. The parish and farm roads
have already in places been covered ; but at pre-
sent the water rur s off at the ebb tide through the
broken sluice and the Marshland sewer. Large
quantities of cattle, sheep, and corn are necessarily
from the threatened deprivation of standing lor
them, forced into the market at Lynn to-day and
this, with falling prices for nearly all cereals, is
doubly disastrous,

The land good ~d to-day is estimated over 2,000
acres, The Marshland Court of Sewers have held
a long meeting this morning, and after an animated
discussion have determined to entrust the safety of
their drain and district to Mr. Valen
Wtinoer,kshe
C.E.,
to give him a carte blanche as
to the andmay
think it necessary to execute.