We may mention, as a remarkable effect of the opening of the new outfall, that in a few hours the lowering of the waters was felt throughout the whole of the Fen level. The sluggish and stagnant drains, cuts, and leams in far distant places, began actually to flow; and the sensation created was such, that at Thorney, near Peterborough, some fifteen miles from the sea, the intelligence penetrated even to the congregation then sitting in church—for it was Sunday morning—that "the waters were running!" when immediately the whole flocked out, parson and all, to see the great sight, and acknowledge the blessings of science. A humble Fen poet of the last century thus quaintly predicted the moral results likely to arise from the improved drainage of his native district:-
"With a change of elements suddenly
There shall a change of men and manners be;
Hearts thick and tough as hides shall feel remorse,
And souls of sedge shall understand discourse;
New hands shall learn to work, forget to steal,
New legs shall go to church, new knees to kneel."
The prophecy has indeed been fulfilled. The barbarous race of Fen-men has disappeared before the skill of the engineer. As the land has been drained, the half-starved fowlers and fen-roamers have subsided into the ranks of steady industry—become farmers, traders, and labourers. The plough has passed over the bed of Holland Fen, and the agriculturist reaps his increase more than a hundred fold.. Wide watery wastes, formerly abounding in fish, are now covered with waving crops of corn every summer. Sheep graze on the dry bottom of Whittlesea Mere, and kine low where not many years since the silence of the waste was only disturbed by the croaking of frogs and the screaming of wild fowl. All this has been the result of the science of the engineer, the enterprise of the landowner, and the industry of our peaceful army of skilled labourers.*[4]
Footnotes for Chapter XIII.
*[1] Telford's Life, p261
*[2] The piers are built internally with hollow compartments, as at the Menai Bridge, the side walls being 3 feet thick and the cross walls 2 feet. Projecting from the piers and abutments are pilasters of solid masonry. The main arches have their springing 70 feet from the foundations and rise 30 feet; and at 20 feet higher, other arches, of 96 feet span and 10 feet rise, are constructed; the face of these, projecting before the main arches and spandrels, producing a distinct external soffit of 5 feet in breadth. This, with the peculiar piers, constitutes the principal distinctive feature in the, bridge.
*[3] "The Nene Outfall channel," says Mr. Tycho Wing, "was projected by the late Mr. Rennie in 1814, and executed jointly by Mr. Telford and the present Sir John Rennie. But the scheme of the North Level Drainage was eminently the work of Mr. Telford, and was undertaken upon his advice and responsibility, when only a few persons engaged in the Nene Outfall believed that the latter could be made, or if made, that it could be maintained. Mr. Telford distinguished himself by his foresight and judicious counsels at the most critical periods of that great measure, by his unfailing confidence in its success, and by the boldness and sagacity which prompted him to advise the making of the North Level drainage, in full expectation of the results for the sake of which the Nene Outfall was undertaken, and which are now realised to the extent of the most sanguine hopes."
*[4] Now that the land actually won has been made so richly productive, the engineer is at work with magnificent schemes of reclamation of lands at present submerged by the sea. The Norfolk Estuary Company have a scheme for reclaiming 50,000 acres; the Lincolnshire Estuary Company, 30,000 acres; and the Victoria Level Company, 150,000 acres—all from the estuary of the Wash. By the process called warping, the land is steadily advancing upon the ocean, and before many years have passed, thousands of acres of the Victoria Level will have been reclaimed for purposes of agriculture.