The Humber, which opposite to Hull, is nearly three miles broad, and about six fathoms deep in mid-channel, is formed by the junction of the Trent and the Ouse, about sixteen miles above Hull, and it discharges itself into the sea about twenty-four miles below that town. From the rapidity of the current, which at spring tides runs at the rate of five miles an hour, and from the numerous sand-banks which are in the river, the navigation of the Humber is both intricate and dangerous; for should a vessel get aground on one of the sands, she is extremely liable to be overset by the force of the tide. Such accidents are, indeed, by no means uncommon, for almost every year affords instances of vessels, both ships and river-craft, being lost in the Humber in this manner. In the upper part of the Humber, in the Trent, and in the Ouse between Trent-falls and Selby, the flood tide, more especially in a strong easterly wind, frequently rushes up the river like a wave, considerably raised above the water which it meets. This tidal wave is called by the people of Hull and its vicinity the "_Ager_,"--the _g_ being pronounced hard; and from the murmuring sound which it makes, as it rolls onward and dashes against the shore, it has been supposed that the river was called the "_Humber_." Drayton, in his Poly-Olbion, thus notices the "_Ager_," or as he spells it, the "Higre," in his description of the Humber:-- "For when my Higre comes, I make my either shore Ever tremble with the sound that I afarre doe send." Taylor, the water-poet, observed this tidal wave in the estuary of the Wash below Boston:-- "It hath lesse mercy than beare, wolfe, or tyger, And, in those countries it is called the Hyger." Dryden, who had noticed it in the river Trent, calls it the "_Eagre_." "But like an Eagre rode in triumph o'er the tide." [Illustration: BURLINGTON QUAY.] BURLINGTON QUAY. The Engraving of Burlington Quay, from a painting by Balmer, presents a view of the entrance to the Harbour from the eastward. To the right is seen the inner part of the Old Pier, as it appeared after the great storm of 17th and 18th February, 1836. In front are the houses at the end of Quay Street, and to the left is the South Pier; between this and the shore two ships are perceived aground at the entrance of the inner harbour, which is nearly dry at low water. In the storm above alluded to, great injury was done to the old North Pier, and part of one of the houses to the right was washed down by the violence of the sea.