BYPAST FLOODS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 234, 2 March 1883, Page 6

BYPAST FLOODS.

The recent floods in the Tyrol and the present ones in Germany are regarded by many as in a piece with these terrible times. It is history repeating itself. ' Comet, followed by floods,' is a familiar entry in the old chronicles \ and this year we have both of them— in their proper order too. c Floods, followed by comet,' would be ridiculous, of course. The floods cannot well make the comet, so the comet muEt make the floods. It may not be uninstructive at the present time to look back at some of the great river floods of history. There is always a tendency to exaggerate present calamities at the expense of past ones. Were the recollections of the oracular oldest inhabitant compared with paper records, it is to be feared that in many cases his memory would be found to be anything but accurate. Of course the present floods are the most dreadful that have happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and so they are if the doted patriarch in question would only confess that he forgets what he had for dinner yesterday. Among the earliest people to feel the incenrenience pf baying oitjee built

upon rivers were the citizens of Rome. Tn the year B.C. 241 the Tiber overflowed its banks, and, it is said, swept away all the houses and buildings in the lower part of the city. Another inundation took place B.C. 54, and a third b.c. 27. In a.d. 15 occurred a fourth and a most serious one. This was not to be stood. Lucius Arruntius and Atteius Capito proposed in the Senate to divert the course of the tributaries of the Tiber, and so cut off its supplies. But the municipal towns protested, and the motion was overruled. So the Roman citizens continued to suffer the submersion of their city every now and again for many centuries. Perhaps the most long-suffering city in this respect of which we have any records is Bagdad. Situated on the low country between the historic rivers Tigris and Euphrates, it has suffered from the overflow of both streams almost continuously. We do not intend to give a chronology of its submersions, but may mention that so recently as 1831 it was severely damaged by an unprecedented rise of the two rivers, 7000 of its houses being thrown down and about 15,000 of its inhabitants buried in the ruins. To come nearer home we have that incorrigible Thames. A record of its misdoings would make a book. This is partly because London happens to be built upon it, and partly because it is a very badly behaved river at any rate. Its misdeeds begin so far back as the year 7, when it left its channel and drowned many persons and cattle. In 48 its waters spread through four counties, 10,000 persona perishing in consequence. Passing over many less disastrous overflows, we find one in 1250, during which the river was six miles broad at Lambeth ! In recent times these floods, though not nearly so fatal as of old, are almost as destructive. In 187? the damage done was estimated at £200,000. Every year the houses close to the water's edge are more or less inundated, a state of matters which the artful tenants are most solicitous to preserve, as they make a handsome thing out of the donations of the charitahle. The first recorded overflow of the Severn occurred in the year 14. G-reat damage was done, although there is no mention of loss of life. In 80, however, many people and cattle were drowned ; the same happened again in 115, and also in 487. In 813 2000 persons and 7000 cattle perished ; in 1046 many cattle were lost j in 1483 the waters ' covered the topß of many mountains,' and carried off men, women, and children in their beds j and in 1703 17,000 sheep and multitudes of cattle were swept away. Of late years the floods in tha Severn "Valley do not seem to be so destructive. At one time or another nearly all the Scotch rivers have distinguished themselves by rising in flood and doing serious damage. The Clyde drowned some 400 families at G-lasgow in 738 (or perhaps 758). The Tay washed down several houses at Perth and carried off the king's youngest son and twelve Court ladies in 1210 or 1212. The Forth and the Tay overflowed in 12fi6 ; the Clyde in 1630 ; the Annan in 1767 (when it swept away houses, cattle, and everything before it) ; the Spey and Findhorn in 1829, causing the celebrated Moray floods } the Ness in 1848 j and the Tay again in 1876. These are, of course, only the most destructive floods. Of the great Continental rivers it is difficult to say which has oftenest spread destruction and desolation along its banks. In 840 the Rhine was greatly flooded, again in 1152, and in 1172. In 1231 a great overflow of the Danube occurred, and in 1260 the Rhine drowned multitudes of people and cattle. The Elbe overflowed in 1501. The Tagus destroyed ' nearly the half of Portugal' in 1531, and in 1553 the Rhine again flooded Germany and Holland. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Rhine and the Danube were about equally destructive. In 1811 the latter swept away 24 villages in Hungary, and two years later it overwhelmed 2000 Turkish troops stationed on an island near Widdin. In 1816 the Vistula comes to the fore, submerging many villages. In 1824 the Neva rose to an unprecedented height, and drowned 10,000 of the citizens of »St. Petersburg and Cronstadt. At the latter place the flood left a 100-gun warship in the inarket-place> The Vistula again overflowed iv 1829, when it destroyed 4000 houses at Dantzic, aud carried off 10,000 head of cattle. In 1840 the Soane swept away about 500 houses, and iv 1875 the Garonne destroyed nearly 7000 houses. On the latter occasion the damage was estimated at from £12,000,000 to £15,000,000. Of river floods in India, America, and other parts of the world we need not speak. We have cited sufficient instances to show that the present floods are not unprecedented, notwithstanding the ominous brilliancy of the