. The earth and its inhabitants ... s the helm, and he finds himself afloat,where but a few minutes before there extended a mere waste of sand. In the upj)erand narrower part of the estuary, where the interval between low and high Avateris very short, the advancing tide-wave rushes suddenly up, and forms a dangerousbore. At spring tides this bore is felt as high up as Gloucester, and owing to its 100 THE BRITISH ISLES. suddenness is dungerous to small craft. Shouts of * Flood 0 ! flood O ! heraldits approach, and warn boatmen to prepare to meet its shock. The tide-waves,especially wlien a liig
. The earth and its inhabitants ... s the helm, and he finds himself afloat,where but a few minutes before there extended a mere waste of sand. In the upj)erand narrower part of the estuary, where the interval between low and high Avateris very short, the advancing tide-wave rushes suddenly up, and forms a dangerousbore. At spring tides this bore is felt as high up as Gloucester, and owing to its 100 THE BRITISH ISLES. suddenness is dungerous to small craft. Shouts of * Flood 0 ! flood O ! heraldits approach, and warn boatmen to prepare to meet its shock. The tide-waves,especially wlien a liigh wind blows up channel, frequently endanger the safetyof the coast lands, and miles of sea-wall have been constructed for their protec-tion. Some of the sand-banlvs in the channel of the Severn are of considerable extent,that known as the Welsh Grounds, for instance, covering an area of 10 squaremiles. They have been utilised, in a few cases, for the construction of piers, Fig. 5;5.— Feuuy at 1 : 75, 2-44 1 Mile. as at Portskewet, where a railway ferry-boat crosses the river at regular quite recently the first bridge met with on ascending the Severn was that ofGloucester, but since 1879 a railway bridge has spanned the river at the SharpnessDocks, above the entrance to the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal. Includinga masonry approach, this bridge has a total length of 4,162 feet. It is composedof bowstring girders, carried on cast-iron cylinders filled with concrete. Two of itsspans have a width of 327 feet each, with a headway of 70 feet above thehigh-water level of ordinary spring tides. The basin of the Severn is designed by nature as a region of great commercial
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
