_Mr. Spooner._--"The effect which extensive drainage produces on the main water-courses of districts, is that of increasing the height of their rise at flood times, and rendering the flow and subsidence more rapid than before. I have repeatedly heard the River Tweed adduced as a striking instance of this fact, and that the change has taken place within the observation of the present generation." _Mr. Maccaw._--"It has been observed that, after extensive surface-drainage on the sheepwalks in the higher parts of the country, and when the lower lands were enclosed by ditches, and partially drained for the purposes of cultivation, all rivers flowing therefrom, rise more rapidly after heavy rains or falls of snow, and discharge their surplus waters more quickly, than under former circumstances." _Mr. Beattie._--"It renders them more speedily flooded, and to a greater height, and they fall sooner. Rivers are lower in Summer and higher in Winter." _Mr. Nielson._--"The immediate effect of the drainage of higher lands has often been to inundate the lower levels." In a prize essay of John Algernon Clarke, speaking of the effect of drainage along the course of the River Nene, in England, he says: "The upland farms are delivering their drain-water in much larger quantities, and more immediately after the downfall, than formerly, and swelling to the depth of three to six feet over the 20,000 acres of open ground, which form one vast reservoir for it above and below Peterborough. The Nene used to overflow its banks, to the extreme height, about the third day after rain: the floods now reach the same height in about half that time. Twelve hours' rain will generally cause an overflow of the land, which all lies unembanked from the stream; and where it is already saturated, this takes place in six or even in two hours. Such a quick rise will cause one body of flood-water to extend for forty or fifty miles in succession, with a width varying from a quarter of a mile to a mile; but it stays sometimes for six weeks, or even two months, upon the ground. And those floods come down with an alarming power and velocity--bridges which have stood for a century are washed away, and districts where floods were previously unknown have became liable to their sudden periodical inundations. The land being wholly in meadow, suffers very heavily from the destruction of its hay. So sudden are the inundations, that it frequently happens that hay made in the day has, in the night been found swimming and gone. A public-house sign at Wansford commemorates the locally-famed circumstance of a man who, having fallen asleep on a hay-cock, was carried down the stream by a sudden flood: awakening just under the bridge of that town, and being informed where he