DAGENHAM BREACH. 163
breadth and forty feet distance from the line of piles. These were
filled with chalk, etc., with a strong bed of chalk outside. As the
piles were driven, the filling of the foot-wharves with chalk continued
till they met in the middle of the creek, and the spaces on either
side between the piles and wharves were filled with earth and stones.
The dam was thus completed to a little over low-water level, and
then the banks of earth were raised on the dam. The narrow canal
which he cut to relieve the pressure, was then filled up, and the
sluices removed, leaving a large body of inland water, of which a
great deal was drawn off by the ordinary small sluices in subsequent
years. The sheet of deeper water now remaining, and known as
"The Gulf," covers about forty acres of ground.