Like all brooks descending from hills, the Fleet was liable to sudden increases of volume, causing inundations.[#] The melting of snow and ice by a sudden thaw and heavy and long-continued rains have frequently turned the Fleet into a mighty and destructive torrent flood. In 1679 it broke down the back of several wholesale butcher-houses at Cow Cross, and carried off cattle dead and alive. At Hockley-in-the-Hole barrels of ale, beer, and brandy floated down the stream. In 1768 the Hampstead Ponds overflowing after a severe storm, the Fleet grew into a torrent, and the roads and fields about Bagnigge Wells were inundated; in the gardens of the latter place the water was four feet deep; in Clerkenwell many thousand pounds’ worth of damage was done. In 1809 a sudden thaw produced a flood, and the whole space between St. Pancras and Pentonville Hill was soon under water, and for several days people received their provisions in at their windows. In 1846 a furious thunderstorm caused the Fleet Ditch to blow up. The rush from the drain at the north arch of Blackfriars Bridge drove a steamer against one of the piers and damaged it. The water penetrated into basements and cellars, and one draper had £3,000 worth of goods ruined. From Acton Place, Bagnigge Wells Road, to King’s Cross, the roads were impassable. In 1855 the Fleet, as one of the metropolitan main sewers, became vested in the then newly-established Metropolitan Board of Works. Shortly after the Metropolitan Railway was planned, and in 1860 the work was commenced. One of the greatest initial difficulties the engineers of that enterprise had to contend with was the irruption of the Fleet Ditch into their works; the Fleet gave, as does the last flare of an expiring candle, its ’last kick,’ made a final effort to assert itself. The ditch, under which the railway had to pass two or three times, suddenly though not unexpectedly filled the tunnel with its dark foetid liquid, which carried all before it; scaffoldings constructed of the stoutest timbers and solid stone and brick walls and piers. But the Metropolitan Board of Works and the railway company, by gigantic and skilfully-conducted efforts, succeeded in forming an outlet for the flood into the Thames; the damage was made good, and the work was successfully carried out. [#] Wherever there are such brooks the same phenomenon appears. Visitors to Nice may have witnessed the sudden rise of the Paillon, and the Birsig at Basle, usually a fine thread of water, has repeatedly risen five or six feet high in the market-place of that town.