DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70266#0189
ACCOUNT OF A WATER SPOUT.
163
longer on particulars, for what followed would only be a re-
petition of what precedes, with difference of place, nothing
which fell in its way was able to resist its fury : but earth,
trees, hedges, stones, walls, bridges, piers, mounds, and
whatever opposed its course, was swept away by the torrent,
till the place where the brook discharged itself into the river
Cocker. Here an end was put to its fury, for though the
channel of the river was far from being capacious enough to
receive the whole of the water, yet, on account of the vast
level plain on each side, its overflowings were innocent, as it
could only deluge to be stagnant. Happily no houses
were within its reach, though one very narrowly escaped, the
ground being all carried away to a considerable depth within
two yards of it, where the solid rock began, on which the
house was founded ; and a mill only escaped by the chan-
nel’s accidentally diverting its force from it to the opposite
bank, which was all torn to pieces. I endeavoured but in
vain, to get data sufficient on which to build a calculation on
the quantity of water which came down; for as it happened
at midnight, neither the time of its continuance could be
ascertained, nor could it be determined, whether it was con-
stant or variable. A clergyman in the neighbourhood was
of opinion, that all the wrater of Crummack, an adjacent
lake of two square miles surface, and very deep, could not
have done half so much harm. It is certain indeed, from
one circumstance, that it must have been very great; as the
water remained the next morning in a widow’s cottage,
twelve feet perpendicular above the surface of the water,
and at the distance of thirty yards from the brook ; and, as
the ground was lower on the opposite bank to the distance
of fifty yards, there must have been a stream of at least four
or five yards deep, and eighty or ninety in breadth, and this
where it ran with the greatest rapidity at the foot of the
mountain.
The effects of the brooks of Hopebeck and Habearton,
¥2
163
longer on particulars, for what followed would only be a re-
petition of what precedes, with difference of place, nothing
which fell in its way was able to resist its fury : but earth,
trees, hedges, stones, walls, bridges, piers, mounds, and
whatever opposed its course, was swept away by the torrent,
till the place where the brook discharged itself into the river
Cocker. Here an end was put to its fury, for though the
channel of the river was far from being capacious enough to
receive the whole of the water, yet, on account of the vast
level plain on each side, its overflowings were innocent, as it
could only deluge to be stagnant. Happily no houses
were within its reach, though one very narrowly escaped, the
ground being all carried away to a considerable depth within
two yards of it, where the solid rock began, on which the
house was founded ; and a mill only escaped by the chan-
nel’s accidentally diverting its force from it to the opposite
bank, which was all torn to pieces. I endeavoured but in
vain, to get data sufficient on which to build a calculation on
the quantity of water which came down; for as it happened
at midnight, neither the time of its continuance could be
ascertained, nor could it be determined, whether it was con-
stant or variable. A clergyman in the neighbourhood was
of opinion, that all the wrater of Crummack, an adjacent
lake of two square miles surface, and very deep, could not
have done half so much harm. It is certain indeed, from
one circumstance, that it must have been very great; as the
water remained the next morning in a widow’s cottage,
twelve feet perpendicular above the surface of the water,
and at the distance of thirty yards from the brook ; and, as
the ground was lower on the opposite bank to the distance
of fifty yards, there must have been a stream of at least four
or five yards deep, and eighty or ninety in breadth, and this
where it ran with the greatest rapidity at the foot of the
mountain.
The effects of the brooks of Hopebeck and Habearton,
¥2