The Rev. C. L. Prince, Fellow of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society, writes to the Times of Wednesday, from the Observatory, Crewborough Beacon, Tunbridge Wells, that there are records of disastrous floods caused by the Thames from the very beginning of the Christian era. The years A.D. 7, A.D. 48, A.D. 479, A.D. 973 were, for in- stance, chronicled as years of serious Thames floods. The Thames flood of the year A.D. 48 is said to have drowned several thousand people, besides cattle. Of a flood in February of the year A.D. 1579 it is recorded, in Edmund Howe's edition of Stowe's "Chronicles of England," that a great snow fell on the night of the 4th February, and that it continued snowing till the 8th, when a frost set in, which lasted two days. Then on the 10th February began a great thaw and continued rain, which caused terrible floods, the river rising so high in Westminster Hall, that after the water subsided again, fishes were left stranded there. Such a flood in our times at such a date would be exceedingly inconvenient to Members of Parliament. Even the Address would hardly get itself moved and seconded, if the Members requisite to make a " house" had to punt their way into Westminster Hall.
