“SIR,--I have had the honour to submit to her Majesty the Queen your letter received last night. Her Majesty had already directed me to make inquiry whether any subscription had been commenced for the relief of the sufferers by the fearful calamity which has occurred near Sheffield. The Queen has commanded me to inform you that it is her Majesty’s intention to contribute £200 towards the objects advocated in your letter. Her Majesty has commanded me to add the expression of her deep sympathy for the poor persons thus suddenly overwhelmed with grief, and exposed to suffering of every description in consequence of this unexpected and dire calamity. As I am not aware of the name of the treasurer, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will take the trouble to forward the enclosed cheque to the proper quarter. “I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant, “C. B. PHIPPS.” An official investigation was made into the cause of the disaster, in the course of which Mr. Rawlinson, the eminent engineer, said, “Several causes may have led to the catastrophe--a fractured pipe, a blown or drawn joint, a creep along the pipes, a pressing down of the pipes in the puddle-trench by the heavy material on both sides of it, or the washing away of the outer slope by a landslip, caused by undiscovered fissures and springs in communication with the interior of the reservoir, which fissures and springs, if they existed, would become active for mischief as the water rose in the reservoir.” The general opinion was that a mistake had been made in laying pipes in the centre of the embankment upon an artificially compressible material--that the bursting of some of these pipes caused a great volume of water suddenly to blow a chasm in the embankment. The celebrated Telford was always opposed to laying pipes through the embankment of a dam, and there could be little doubt that the coroner’s jury came to the right conclusion when they declared in their verdict, that the works had not been constructed with the engineering skill and attention which their magnitude and importance demanded.