The Thames Valley Catastrophe | Page 5

was
the molten lava as it gurgled from the mouth of the vast fissure. I say
vast, because so it seemed to me, though, as everybody now knows, the
actual gap where the earth opened measures no more than eight miles
across, from a point near what was once Shiplake Ferry to the site of
the old lime-kilns at Marlow. Yet when one saw the eruption actually
taking place, the colossal scale of it was what most appalled one. A sea
of fire, eight to twelve miles broad, in the familiar Thames Valley,
impressed and terrified one a thousand times more than a sea of fire ten
times as vast in the nameless wilds of Western America.
I could see dimly, too, that the flood spread in every direction from its
central point, both up and down the river. To right and left, indeed, it
was soon checked and hemmed in by the hills about Wargrave and
Medmenham; but downward, it had filled the entire valley as far as
Cookham and beyond; while upward, it spread in one vast glowing
sheet towards Reading and the flats by the confluence of the Kennet. I
did not then know, of course, that this gigantic natural dam or barrier
was later on to fill up the whole low-lying level, and so block the
course of the two rivers as to form those twin expanses of inland water,
Lake Newbury and Lake Oxford. Tourists who now look down on still
summer evenings where the ruins of Magdalen and of Merton may be
dimly descried through the pale green depths, their broken masonry
picturesquely overgrown with tangled water-weeds, can form but little
idea of the terrible scene which that peaceful bank presented while the
incandescent lava was pouring forth in a scorching white flood towards
the doomed district. Merchants who crowd the busy quays of those
mushroom cities which have sprung up with greater rapidity than
Chicago or Johannesburg on the indented shore where the new lakes
abut upon the Berkshire Chalk Downs have half forgotten the horror of

the intermediate time when the waters of the two rivers rose slowly,
slowly, day after day, to choke their valleys and overwhelm some of
the most glorious architecture in Britain. But though I did not know and
could not then foresee the remoter effects of the great fire-flood in that
direction, I saw enough to make my heart stand still within me. It was
with difficulty that I grasped my bicycle, my hands trembled so fiercely.
I realized that I was a spectator of the greatest calamity which had
befallen a civilized land within the ken of history.
I looked southward along the valley in the direction of Maidenhead. As
yet it did not occur to me that the catastrophe was anything more than a
local flood, though even as such it would have been one of unexampled
vastness. My imagination could hardly conceive that London itself was
threatened. In those days one could not grasp the idea of the destruction
of London. I only thought just at first, "It will go on towards
Maidenhead!" Even as I thought it, I saw a fresh and fiercer gush of fire
well out from the central gash, and flow still faster than ever down the
centre of the valley, over the hardening layer already cooling on its
edge by contact with the air and soil. This new outburst fell in a mad
cataract over the end or van of the last, and instantly spread like water
across the level expanse between the Cliveden hills and the opposite
range at Pinkneys. I realized with a throb that it was advancing towards
Windsor. Then a wild fear thrilled through me. If Windsor, why not
Staines and Chertsey and Hounslow? If Hounslow, why not London?
In a second I remembered Ethel and the children. Hitherto, the
immediate danger of my own position alone had struck me. The fire
was so near; the heat of it rose up in my face and daunted me. But now
I felt I must make a wild dash to warn--not London--no, frankly, I
forgot those millions; but Ethel and my little ones. In that thought, for
the first moment, the real vastness of the catastrophe came home to me.
The Thames Valley was doomed! I must ride for dear life if I wished to
save my wife and children!
I mounted again, but found my shaking feet could hardly work the
pedals. My legs were one jelly. With a frantic effort, I struck off inland
in the direction of Burnham. I did not think my way out definitely; I

hardly knew the topography of the district well enough to form any
clear conception of what route I must take in order to keep to the hills
and avoid