carried off, along with nearly
every fragment of their house. His body was discovered a considerable
time after, at a distance of many miles down the valley. It may be
remarked, that about 100 people perished in the flood; and out of that
number, at the time of our visit, only one body remained unrecovered.

The catastrophe is too recent to require much detail. It took its
origin, as is well known, in a reservoir of water for the use of the
mills, formed by a dam across the valley. This had been constructed in
1838, and in an imperfect manner. The embankment, eighty feet in
height, sloped outwards and inwards, with facings of masonry, thus
obeying the proper rule as to form; but the _puddling_, or clay-casing
of the interior, was defective, and it is believed that a spring
existed underneath. Some years ago, the embankment began to sink, so
that its upper line became a curve, the deepest part of which was
eight or ten feet below the uppermost. This should have given some
alarm to the commissioners appointed to manage the reservoir; and the
danger was actually pointed out, and insisted upon so long ago as
1844. But the commission became insolvent, and went into Chancery; so
nothing was done. A sort of safety-valve is provided in such works,
exactly of the same nature as the waste-pipe of a common cistern. It
consists of a hollow tower of masonry rising within the embankment, in
connection with a sluice-passage, or _by-wash_, by which the water may
be let off. This tower, rising to within a few feet of the original
upper level of the embankment, was of course sure to receive and
discharge any water which might come to the height of its own lip,
thus insuring that the water should never quite fill the reservoir, or
charge it beyond its calculated strength. By the sluice provision,
again, the water could at any time be discharged, even before it
reached nearly so high a point. Unfortunately, this part of the work
was in an inefficient state, the embankment having itself sunk below
the level of the open-mouthed top of the tower, while the sluice below
was blocked up with rubbish. It was subsequently declared by the
manager, that this defect might have been remedied at any time by an
expenditure of L.12, 10s.! If the commission could not or would not
advance this small sum, one would have thought that the mill-owners
might have seen the propriety of clubbing for so cheap a purchase of
safety. They failed to do so, and the de