We were coming within a mile of the Bilberry embankment, when we began to observe a new class of phenomena. Hitherto, the channel of the stream had not exhibited any unusual materials; nor had its banks been much broken, except in a few places. We had been on the outlook to observe if the flood, and the heavy matters with which it was charged, had produced any abrasion of the subjacent rock-structure. No such effects could be traced. We were now, however, getting within the range of the scattered debris of the embankment, and quickly detected the presence of masses of a kind of rubbish different from the rounded pebbles usually found in the bed of a river. There were long _trainees_, composed of mud and clay, including angular blocks of stone, which were constantly increasing in size as we passed onwards. These blocks were the materials of the embankment, which the water had carried thus far. No ploughing up of the channel had taken place, but simply much new matter had been deposited. In some places, these fresh deposits had transgressed into the fields; and where trees were involved, the bark on the side toward the upper part of the valley had generally been rubbed off. Not much more than a quarter of a mile from the reservoir, we found Mrs Birst's mill, or rather a memorial of its former existence, in a tall furnace-chimney, for literally no more survives. The deposit of rubbish was here eight or ten feet deep, and a number of workmen were engaged in excavating from it fragments of machinery and other articles. They had cleared out the ground-rooms of the house, though little more than the base of the walls remained. The scene was precisely like an excavation at Herculaneum. The outline of the rooms was beginning to be traceable. A grate and a fireplace appeared. We observed a child's shoe taken out and laid aside--an affecting image of the household desolation which had taken place. Mrs Birst, however, and her whole family, had been fortunate enough to escape with life, although with the loss of all their property. This mill, from its nearness to the reservoir, as well as the contractedness of the valley at the spot, had experienced the violence of the flood in a degree of intensity unknown elsewhere.